.4  [  \ 


H     i                     JK 

IlliliSiliSIflllll 

111         UC-NRLF                                ™^^^"^HM 

jl  liiiiiiiiiiH^^^H 

|       M    31 

ifiteli  Jill 

HI  p  jjjj  f|S[ljjji  [  J;'{{{!|  I 

li  HNHnH 

.  fe:!;;:;-;;.::i|!!:-!:|;;|!';:rj:|: 

•;  W,  ill!    MS  tefe  H 

K'  '  ;|!'r    1  I  lltiv     ••■;;jii',',j  ;..'• 

BML'il'j'ilJli-'-''!  B  H!  II 

ffl|ffi||l'*!;i!!: :':-'  ijifilj'  iiijilijii  lifei'lii!  jj-il  i$ji|lil$i"]|i  liii'iijllj  feiiifiiiPlwij;  ::!i |W  $91?$  iife 
lillllffi       •           il !              '        ,  !                            '•'!'•     "■ 

||||           ||     ■                                             |         |       -    ■,                 |||||j        • 

^w^mllF-'id'i-'iiiri'ilj  !5i'|]  'i  '!{''!  i  iijii!   ' '.'•  .:  ,  ili'l''!!  '  |H  i  !''!'Siiii''|  Sjli'.'ili'j'i  .:■•!;,!!;''  !:!;''. •!!'!•'      ^!'i;i:l''ili"'i 

)||iih!!!{j!fl,;:'' ';'•.■'•  :■  -I-!- :!;:.!..|;i'J: ;jil!!i! '■•;';': v':S;' i'tf'i; ''{ llij'j y'.'/i:,\\,  ^liijiiiijiiili '  Hlili'i]  ':i:l- i !!:';'■' !;:t$frlHJIj]l] 

if 88]  lUri' !i'f|!ii'!i|.,-':i''i-,>';-';''i-' i;'-':i;,.-.'r;  ■;■.:■;    |f;lii;ij]lj|  j:il{fjii|;jj  |',I     'i'ilii    i.'i     [litii   (i  \     ! HMjif    itt.H  ill-'    .i!;.;/:;t{'!!ii 

!i  Hj8  t  v  |{fll|]  Ittfllttfil  li'i  :i[  h  !'• H  !!'''•  'if  linn  INHitil  liilliltllrl    •'  >!'•"'•"!■;■  -'I  .- ;  i  ■  l ;  i j  t :  I  *  -  -  •  1  j : '  *  *  J  - » *  |  ij!'!'|l|jli:,'i  HStllJffl 

tBfBnffflyllii'-  ■'■'''  ■ :    '[■''''('ii1'  '    Ii1  ;'-  i'f'i1!  '•'■:!:.'■'; 'Mil  W-i Ilillli'ilij)?! ■.',;;',''. •:  :!:!.    ;il    •    ■  ■' \'.i:,','r.':  .'■'. ;j!j  '■  i'lli;  !|i Jlljfl :^({H'Ji 

|||[{]|I||{bi!i  liJ  '■:••  '  ji;!  ^!||||ji;'jl!}tl ijiili'  • : ; { j ', - i j - 1 ' ; - 1  r ; ; !  [ ' ,' M ' [ ' ; { ; f •■  •!;  ;j{j  iiilif'KlillJHHiilllilil'fi IJlPw'IrWlHBwiipjip 
Hi  (if!)  li'i                       |i    '          ;ij{  C 1  'V  |lj     i'i|     H|       Pi!         j                                                       r'"'!' 

ft^ife  Pi!  H  iii  1  ilii  i  }f| 

H-:-^^'  '.;  'v"     •  ,':!i:i!»i    1; 
iK;'r;  H!:'-i.;  l!!i!l.i<.;'i'!,i!U;'!'j     •; 

wll8lilPii  Mftfsiti  I  tfj$  mills 

S};:lJiij!;.'i  :;;>  v  ';:  •  vi  '/■'{ I; :|| J'; 

II  K 

B*AF?Y-AGR!CULTURE 


OCPT^.j 


THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 


THE  NEW  BUSINESS 
OF  FARMING 


BY 


JULIAN  A.  DIMOCK 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


\ 


<04 


I   II 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company 


All  rights  reserved 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Introduction 1 

I.    Size  of  the  Farm  from  a  Business  Stand- 
point        .......  10 

II.    Capital  Necessary  in  Farming    ...  20 

III.  Diversity 29 

IV.  Big  Crops  vs.  Normal 40 

V.    Rotation  of  Crops 49 

VI.    Competition  and  the  Laws  of  Prices  .        .  58 

VII.    Fitting  Scheme  to  Conditions    ...  67 

VIII.    Coordination  of  Enterprises        ...  76 

IX.    The  Opportunity  for  the  Individual  .        .  84 

X.    Live  Stock  on  the  Farm      ....  93 

XL    The  Farm  As  a  Home 103 

Bibliography 113 


415300 


THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 


THE   NEW  BUSINESS 
OF   FARMING 


INTRODUCTION 

The  tale  of  the  small  bonanza  farm,  where 
the  owner  makes  a  fortune  from  three  acres, 
is  dear  to  the  heart  of  the  magazine  editor  and 
the  city  reader,  but  it  is  " bunkum.' ' 

The  individual  may  make  a  lot  of  money  for 
a  year  or  two,  but  if  the  chance  exists  for  an- 
other to  do  the  same  thing  in  that  region  the 
claim  will  have  been  preempted  by  a  neighbor 
long  before  the  quick-footed  city  man  can  reach 
the  spot.  Production  will  increase  until  the  op- 
portunity is  overwhelmed.  The  produce  will 
flood  the  market  until  the  producer  cannot  give 
it  away.  Profits  will  drop  out  of  sight.  If 
the  space  writer  again  visits  his  wonderland 

l 


2        TMi<:  >TKW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

he  will  be  confronted  by  the  signs,  "To  Let" 
and  "For  Sale."  He  will  wonder  what  was 
the  trouble,  for  he  remembers  that  he  took  every 
precaution  to  verify  his  information.  He  pon- 
dered over  the  balance  sheets  and  footed  up 
the  debit  and  credit  columns  of  the  farmers' 
accounts. 

Every  one  is  looking  for  a  gold  mine,  and 
big  returns  from  a  small  investment  in  land 
look  about  as  good  as  a  mine.  Actual  mines, 
however,  are  limited  in  number,  but  the  acres 
of  land  are  limitless  and  the  production  thereof 
is  governed  by  the  demand.  An  acre  of  ground 
will  grow  four  tons  of  hay  whenever  the  price 
of  that  commodity  justifies  the  expense  of  mak- 
ing it  do  so.  In  the  meantime  it  will  yield 
scarcely  better  than  one  ton.  If  a  man  makes 
a  thousand  dollars  a  year  profit  from  an  acre 
of  celery  or  strawberries  there  will  be  a  rush 
to  that  mining-field.  People  will  flock  in,  and 
competition  will  turn  the  profits  into  losses. 
The  first  man  on  the  job  had  better  sell  out  to 
the  newcomers  before  the  big  crops  flood  the 
market.    If  his  profits  come  from  acres  of  ap- 


INTRODUCTION  3 

pies  he  may  safely  hold  the  property  much 
longer,  for  it  takes  many  years  to  raise  apple- 
trees  to  the  bearing  age,  and  competition  will 
be  delayed. 

There  are  plenty  of  individual  opportunities 
in  farming  as  in  everything  else.  The  best 
equipped  will  win  out.  One  man  succeeds  where 
another  fails.  If  you  want  to  farm,  for  heaven's 
sake  farm!  Do  not  be  discouraged  by  the  ob- 
stacles, for  they  make  the  fun.  Seventy  per 
cent,  of  city  business  men  fail  at  some  period 
of  their  lives,  but  comparatively  few  farmers 
have  a  visit  from  the  sheriff.  Although  many 
city  men  who  go  back  to  the  land  live  in  dread 
of  such  a  visit  they  rarely  go  to  their  neighbors 
for  advice.  They  keep  on  with  their  "  modern 
methods ' '  instead  of  owning  up  that  their  neigh- 
bors know  more  than  they  do.  If  it  pays  to 
add  two  tons  of  fertilizer  to  the  hay-field,  the 
farmer  will  do  it.  If  it  doesn  't  pay,  the  farmer 
will  not  do  it.  The  city  man  will  try  it  out  if 
he  can  figure  out  a  profit,  but  the  bets  are  even 
that  his  figuring  is  wrong,  that  he  has  omitted 


4        THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FABMING 

some   vital   factor.      He    may   figure    in   this 
fashion : 

Normal  yield,  1  ton  per  acre . .  $15.00 

Forced  yield,  3  tons $45.00 

Cost  of  fertilizer 25.00      20.00 


Net  revenue  from  fertilizer . . .  $5.00 

His  neighbor  will  tell  him  that  he  "hasn't 
found  it  paid  to  put  phosphate  on  old  seeding. ' ' 
He  doesn't  always  know  why,  but  it  doesn't 
pay. 

In  the  above  figuring  the  city  man  has  omit- 
ted the  charge  for  applying  the  fertilizer  and 
the  harvesting  cost  of  two  tons  of  hay.  These 
items  will  make  his  use  of  chemicals  an  actual 
loss  instead  of  profit.  He  can  even  quote  many 
bulletins  in  support  of  his  position;  but,  bulle- 
tins or  no  bulletins,  his  neighbor  was  right. 

The  principles  underlying  the  business  of 
farming  are  beginning  to  be  understood.  They 
are  as  simple  as  any  fundamental  principles, 
but  because  of  the  complexities  entering  into 


INTRODUCTION  5 

farm  life  it  has  been  difficult  to  extract  them. 
One  man  may  raise  an  acre  of  violets  and  sell 
them  far  above  the  cost  of  production  because 
of  some  novel  advertising  scheme  which  con- 
nects him  with  the  wearer  of  flowers.  His  in- 
come arises  from  his  ability  as  an  advertiser 
and  not  as  a  raiser  of  violets.  Moreover,  if  a 
few  more  acres  of  violets  were  raised,  the  mar- 
ket would  be  so  flooded  with  the  flowers  that  a 
bunch  would  be  given  away  with  each  copy  of 
a  penny  newspaper. 

Special  crops  and  special  markets  do  not  en- 
ter into  the  discussion  of  general  principles. 
Competition  will  take  care  of  the  first  in  quick 
order  and  will  gradually  suck  the  excessive 
profit  from  the  latter. 

Farming  is  a  conservative  business,  with 
small  chance  of  large  loss.  No  man  on  earth 
can  change  the  economic  law  that  the  return  on 
the  investment  from  such  a  business  will  be 
small. 

The  itemized  capital  account  of  759  typical 
farms  in  New  York  will  show  just  how  conser- 
vative is  the  investment : 


THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 


73% 

Eeal  Estate 

16% 

Live  Stock 

7% 

Machinery  and  Tools 

2% 

Feed  and  Seed 

1% 

Produce  (unsold) 

1% 

Cash 

100% 

Nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  business  men 
out  of  a  thousand,  on  simply  looking  over  that 
statement,  would  write  across  its  face:  "Slow 
Returns." 

And  yet  those  very  same  men  would  buy  a 
farm  for  $100,000.00,  one-half  of  which  would 
be  for  fine  dwellings,  magnificent  views,  fancy 
barns  and  what  not,  and  plan  out  a  system  of 
farming  which  was  to  show  a  net  profit  of  $10,- 
000.00  the  first  year. 

It  cannot  be  done. 

More  than  one  man  has  built  a  dairy  barn  at 
a  cost  per  cow  of  a  thousand  dollars.  Interest, 
insurance,  depreciation,  will  make  an  annual 
charge  of  $100.00  per  animal  for  housing  alone. 
Few  cows  bring  in  this  sum  gross  in  a  year.    A 


INTRODUCTION  7 

building  sufficiently  good  for  the  production  of 
certified  milk,  with  some  thought  for  architec- 
tural design,  can  be  erected  for  a  charge  of 
$100.00  per  cow.  This  is  the  fair  ' '  farm  value ' ' 
of  a  barn  for  cows,  unchanged  by  its  actual  cost. 

We  must  differentiate  clearly  between  the 
business  of  farming  and  the  purchase  or  mak- 
ing of  a  home.  Any  expense  which  one  can  af- 
ford is  justified  in  the  latter,  but  every  last  cent 
should  be  counted  in  the  reckoning  of  the  for- 
mer. When  one  selects  a  site  for  a  manufactur- 
ing plant,  no  report  is  made  of  the  magnificent 
sunset  over  the  bay.  The  bay  is  spoken  of  in 
terms  of  cheap  transportation. 

It  was  only  when  the  investigators  collected 
the  data  from  a  large  number  of  farms  and 
worked  out  their  principles  from  facts  rather 
than  deducing  them  from  theories  that  they 
found  out  how  simple  the  fundamentals  were. 

The  more  capital,  the  bigger  will  be  the  re- 
turns ;  the  larger  the  business,  the  more  econo- 
mies that  can  be  introduced  and  consequently 
the  higher  the  ratio  of  profits ;  the  more  hours 
of  the  man's  time  profitably  employed,   the 


8        THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

greater  the  labor  income;  the  greater  the  di- 
versity of  work  (within  limits),  the  better  the 
yearly  use  of  labor ;  the  larger  the  farm,  the  less 
per  acre  cost  of  machinery  and  the  more  effi- 
cient its  use.  Every  office  boy  can  quote  these 
business  axioms ;  but  farming  did  not  seem  like 
a  business  and  such  rules  were  thought  not  to 
apply. 

Many  a  city  man  has  written  to  an  agricul- 
tural college  for  help.  He  has  announced  that 
he  has  saved  five  thousand  dollars  and  wishes 
to  buy  a  farm.  Until  he  is  ready  to  undertake 
the  job  himself  he  wishes  to  hire  a  graduate  to 
manage  the  farm.  Will  they  please  advise  as  to 
farms  and  recommend  a  graduate  capable  of  the 
contract. 

How  many  well-paid  managers  would  a  con- 
servative city  business  of  five  thousand  dollars ' 
capital  support?  And  remember  that  in  farm- 
ing the  capital  is  turned  over  only  once  a  year, 
at  the  best. 

Gulliver  proclaimed  the  benefit  to  humanity 
of  raising  two  blades  of  grass  where  but  one 
grew  before.    It  sounded  too  good  to  be  dis- 


INTRODUCTION  9 

puted,  and  has  come  down  through  the  years 
since  as  an  agricultural  gospel.  Any  engineer 
could  have  told  us  about  the  cost  of  overcoming 
inertia,  and  it  would  not  have  been  hard  to  fig- 
ure that  it  might  be  expensive  to  speed  up  the 
land.    Only  nobody  thought  of  it  that  way. 

Every  one  who  reads  the  magazines  remem- 
bers the  tale  of  the  minister  who  made  fifteen 
acres  of  land  care  for  thirty  head  of  livestock. 
His  books  showed  a  profit,  but  his  bank  account 
did  not  reflect  the  same  ratio  of  prosperty.  To- 
day the  Farm  Management  experts  can  show  us 
how  this  farmer  would  have  made  a  much  larger 
income  if  he  had  taken  his  capital  back  to  any 
good  farming  section  and  used  it  in  the  regular 
methods  employed  in  that  region.  No  pyro- 
technics, no  unprecedented  yields,  just  a  regu- 
lar weekly  profit  would  have  been  rolling  in 
fifty-two  times  a  year. 

These  principles  of  agriculture,  simple  busi- 
ness rules,  are  the  factors  that  make  success  in 
farming. 


CHAPTER  I 

SIZE   OF  THE   FARM   FROM   A   BUSINESS   STANDPOINT 

When  Abraham  Lincoln  was  asked  how  long 
a  man's  legs  should  be,  he  made  his  famous 
reply  that  they  should  be  long  enough  to  reach 
from  the  man's  body  to  the  ground.  In  like 
manner  a  man's  farm  should  be  big  enough  to 
supply  him  with  work — steady,  efficient,  eco- 
nomical work.  His  job  is  to  raise  food  for  the 
human  family  as  cheaply  as  possible.  His  busi- 
ness is  to  make  a  profit  for  himself  in  doing  it. 

The  world  wants  cheap  food.  Every  cent 
that  can  be  cut  from  the  cost  of  the  twenty 
million  breakfast  tables  of  this  country  leaves 
so  much  more  to  be  spent  in  other  ways.  If  the 
food  of  the  family  costs  less,  the  children  can 
have  warmer  clothing,  the  talking-machine  can 
have  a  few  extra  cans  of  Caruso  or  Mme.  Sem- 

10 


SIZE  OF  THE  FAKM  11 

brich,  or  the  whole  family  can  take  an  occa- 
sional joy  ride. 

We  have  those  things  to-day  because  food 
does  cost  less  than  it  did  generations  ago.  Then 
it  took  the  farmer's  family  and  their  united 
efforts  to  raise  enough  food  for  themselves, 
with  very  little  to  spare.  It  required  weeks 
for  the  New  Hampshire  farmer  to  haul  a  single 
load  of  produce  to  the  Boston  market.  It  is 
obvious  that  there  was  not  much  time  to  devote 
to  luxuries 

The  Chinese  do  not  have  these  luxuries  be- 
cause they  are  too  busy  raising  food  to  support 
life.  The  production  per  man  is  so  low  that 
seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  population  are 
farmers.  Only  one  man  out  of  every  four  is 
left  free  to  do  other  work,  and  that  will  not 
supply  an  abundance  of  automobiles  or  build 
many  miles  of  railroad. 

In  a  few  years  only  fifteen  per  cent,  of  Amer- 
icans will  be  farmers.  That  is,  six  out  of  every 
seven  will  be  free  for  other  business.  In  China 
each  farmer  has  two  acres  of  land.  In  America 
each  farm  has  one  hundred  and  forty  acres. 


12      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

America  has  plenty  of  farm  land.  Labor 
costs  more  than  land.  So  the  economic  factor 
in  farming  is  not  the  amount  of  produce  which 
an  acre  of  land  will  raise  but  the  amount  which 
a  man  can  produce.  It  is  the  man  who  raises 
two  blades  of  grass  where  man  raised  but  one 
before  who  is  the  benefactor  of  his  race;  not 
the  one  who  forces  a  given  spot  of  ground  to 
double  its  production.  That  may  cost  too  much 
in  human  labor,  and  human  labor  is  what  we 
wish  to  save. 

In  building  up  a  farm  business,  then,  we  must 
consider  land  in  terms  of  labor.  It  is  not  good 
business  to  have  so  little  land  that  labor  is 
wasted  or,  for  any  reason,  used  inefficiently.  It 
is  better  to  have  a  few  acres  of  land  idle  at  an 
interest  cost  of  a  dollar  or  two  an  acre  rather 
than  to  have  a  three-hundred-dollar  man  sitting 
around  in  front  of  the  stove. 

It  costs  nearly  as  much  to  keep  a  team  of 
horses  as  it  does  to  keep  a  hired  man.  But  a 
horse  will  do  ten  times  the  field  work  that  a 
man  can  do.    So,  to  adapt  the  size  of  the  farm 


SIZE  OF  THE  FARM  13 

to  economical  horse  labor  is  even  more  impor- 
tant than  to  adapt  it  to  man  labor. 

If  a  man  is  alone  on  a  farm  he  is  working  at 
a  disadvantage  in  numberless  ways.  The 
horses  are  idle  while  he  is  doing  chores.  If  he 
takes  a  trip  to  town  the  whole  machinery  of  the 
farm  stops,  for  horses,  tools,  and  man  are  all 
of?  their  work.  There  are  a  thousand  and  one 
little  jobs  that  two  men  can  do  in  a  minute  that 
would  take  one  man  fifteen  to  do  alone. 

A  man  is  non-divisible;  he  cannot  do  two 
jobs  at  once.  But  part  of  the  cost  of  a  horse 
is  the  necessary  oversight  of  its  work  by  a 
driver.  That  can  be  divided,  for  one  man  can 
drive  four  horses  as  well  as  he  can  one.  And 
much  of  the  modern  machinery  is  made  for  the 
use  of  a  three-  or  a  four-horse  team.  The  re- 
sult of  this  is  shown  in  the  census  figures  for 
ten  years.  In  1880  a  man  cared  for  twenty- 
three  acres  of  crops,  but  in  1890  he  was  caring 
for  thirty-one  acres.  This  simply  meant  that 
by  the  use  of  four-horse  teams  a  man  was  cov- 
ering more  land  in  the  same  length  of  time,  for 
during  that  period  the  amount  of  land  that  a 


14      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FABMING 

horse  could  care  for  was  unchanged.  The  sav- 
ing was  in  the  time  of  the  driver. 

If  one  man  tries  to  care  for  ten  cows  and 
two  horses,  the  team  will  be  idle  much  of  the 
time  while  the  man  is  doing  chores.  But  if 
two  men  care  for  twenty  cows  and  four  horses, 
the  team  can  be  kept  busy  all  the  time  and  there 
will  be  a  direct  saving  in  the  time  required  for 
the  care  of  the  cows,  for  it  does  not  take  twice 
as  long  to  look  after  twenty  cows  as  it  does  to 
care  for  ten.  The  economic  unit  of  man  labor 
on  a  farm  is  not  one  man  but  two.  The  economic 
unit  of  horse  labor  is  not  a  two-horse  team,  but 
a  four-horse  team. 

This  brings  us  to  the  unit  of  size  for  the 
farm.  It  should  have  at  least  enough  acres  to 
keep  two  men  and  four  horses  busy  all  the  year 
round.  Upon  this  as  a  basis  we  can  build  until 
we  strike  other  factors  which  limit  the  profit- 
able size. 

Labor  on  a  farm  cannot  be  organized  as  can 
that  in  a  factory.  It  is  of  a  character  that  re- 
quires individual  initiative  and  is  rarely  of  a 
kind  so  that  a  gang  of  men  can  work  together. 


SIZE  OF  THE  FARM  15 

One  man,  or  two,  work  by  themselves,  perhaps 
out  of  sight  and  sound  of  the  next  man.  Exig- 
encies of  weather,  insects,  or  other  conditions 
may  cause  a  complete  change  of  work  at  an 
hour's  notice  and  the  whole  organization  be 
upset.  An  overseer  in  a  factory  can  inspect 
the  work  of  a  thousand  employees  in  thirty 
minutes,  but  it  would  take  him  a  year  really  to 
inspect  the  work  of  a  thousand  men  on  a  farm. 
Moreover  the  distance  to  the  fields  from  the 
barn  becomes  a  serious  factor  before  we  mul- 
tiply that  first  unit  of  size  very  many  times. 

The  biggest  saving  is  between  the  farm  too 
small  to  be  efficient  and  the  first  unit  of  size, 
for  the  area  farmed  by  one  hundred  dollars' 
worth  of  labor  is  five  times  as  great  on  a  hun- 
dred-and-seventy-five-acre  farm  as  on  one  of 
thirty  acres. 

Horse  labor  is  more  efficient  on  the  large  than 
on  the  small  area.  On  a  fifty-acre  farm  one 
horse  cares  for  twenty-one  acres  of  cultivated 
crops,  but  on  a  two-hundred-and-sixty-acre 
farm  one  horse  will  care  for  forty-nine  acres  of 
crops.    While  a  man  will  produce  twice  as  much 


16      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

on  a  hundred-and-fifty-acre  farm  as  on  one  of 
only  fifty  acres.  On  the  larger  farms,  then,  the 
labor  of  horses  and  men,  the  chief  items  of  cost 
in  raising  crops,  is  cut  in  half. 

The  small  farm  cannot  afford  sufficient 
machinery  to  do  the  work  economically;  but 
neither  can  the  farmer  afford  to  be  without  the 
machinery.  He  must  overload  his  investment, 
per  acre,  in  tools,  for  the  same  tools  that  are 
required  to  farm  two  hundred  and  fifty  acres 
are  needed  for  a  farm  of  fifty.  But  in  the 
latter  case  the  investment,  per  acre,  would  be 
five  times  as  much. 

The  equipment  for  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  acres  of  land — horses,  men  and  tools — will, 
with  very  little  additional  cost,  farm  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  acres.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising to  find  that  the  farmer's  labor  income 
jumps  fifty-eight  per  cent,  with  this  additional 
fifty  acres.  When  the  farm  runs  above  two 
hundred  acres  in  size,  some  duplication  in 
machinery  is  required  and  the  proportion  of  in- 
creased return  to  the  farmer  becomes  smaller. 
At  about  three  hundred  acres,  the  duplication  is 


SIZE  OF  THE  FARM  17 

necessary  all  around  and  the  limit  of  economy 
under  one  management  is  reached. 

The  relative  capital  tied  up  in  barns  and 
house  is  much  greater  on  the  small  farm  than 
on  the  large  one. 

The  records  show  that  in  one  county  in  New 
York  State  the  average  farmer  having  eighty 
acres  of  land  earned  only  $370.00  for  his  own 
labor,  while  the  one  farming  a  hundred  and 
seventy-five  acres  received  $635.00  for  his  time ; 
and  the  farmer  cultivating  two  hundred  and 
sixty  acres  received  a  labor  income  of  $1,000.00. 
Less  than  3%  of  the  farmers  having  only  one 
hundred  acres  made  a  labor  income  of  $1,000.00, 
but  33%  of  those  using  two  hundred  acres  or 
more  earned  $1,000.00.  It  is  true  that  a  man  on 
a  large  farm  has  a  chance  to  lose  more  than  the 
one  on  a  small  farm,  but  he  has,  at  least,  a  much 
greater  chance  to  make  more. 

We  must  not  go  to  the  other  extreme  and 
decide  that  the  larger  the  farm  the  bigger  the 
return.  At  a  certain  place  complete  duplica- 
tion of  equipment  becomes  necessary  and  the 
distances  between  fields  will  more  than  offset 


18      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

the  economies  practicable,  and  at  this  point  it 
is  better  to  divide  the  large  acreage  up  into 
separate  farms.  But  as  between  the  farm  of 
fifty  acres  and  that  of  two  hundred  the  differ- 
ence is  not  the  difference  of  a  few  men  and 
many,  but  in  half-time  and  full-time  work  for 
the  same  number. 

Profit  is  the  difference  between  the  selling 
price  and  the  cost  of  production.  The  pro- 
ducer makes  in  proportion  to  the  difference 
between  these  two.  The  passerby  is  impressed 
by  the  sight  of  idle  land.  The  horses  eating 
their  heads  off  inside  the  barn  are  not  in  evi- 
dence. It  is  therefore  a  popular  conception 
that  idle  land  means  poor  farming.  Really  it 
is  the  fat,  sleek,  underworked,  well-groomed 
horses  that  mean  poor  farming  and  the  men 
spending  their  time  around  the  stove  in  the 
store  instead  of  riding  on  a  gang-plow  behind 
a  four-horse  team. 

Land  is  only  the  vehicle  for  work.  It  is  the 
least  part  of  the  cost  of  producing  crops.  Labor 
is  the  chief  item.  So  land  should  be  subordi- 
nated to  labor.    The  size  of  the  farm  should  be 


SIZE  OF   THE   FAEM  19 

that  on  which  a  given  amount  of  labor  will 
produce  the  greatest  result. 

The  figures  given  in  this  sketch  are  taken 
from  statistics  published  concerning  New 
York  State  conditions,  but  will  hold,  with  due 
allowance  for  type  of  farming  and  topography, 
in  any  part  of  the  country. 


CHAPTER  II 

CAPITAL   NECESSARY  IN  FARMING 

The  capital  account  of  a  farm  is  a  measure 
of  the  size  of  the  business.  If  all  farms  carried 
on  the  same  type  of  farming  and  all  farm  land 
was  worth  the  same  price  per  acre,  we  could 
use  the  acre  as  a  measure  of  size.  But  the  flor- 
ist, with  a  few  acres  of  high-priced  land  under 
glass,  may  have  more  money  invested  in  his 
business  than  the  cattle  raiser  with  a  thousand 
acres  of  range  land,  or  the  truck  grower  may 
intensify  until  the  cost  of  his  crops  from  a  sin- 
gle acre  compares  with  that  of  a  whole  cotton 
farm  in  the  South. 

Analyses  of  farm  accounts  have  shown  that 
the  farmer  's  return  is  in  proportion  to  the  capi- 
tal invested,  up  to  the  amount  where  the  size  be- 
comes unmanageable  because  of  physical  fac- 
tors.   That  is,  the  larger  the  business,  the  big- 

20 


CAPITAL  NECESSARY  IN  FARMING    21 

ger  the  return,  and  not  only  that,  but  the  big- 
ger the  percentage  of  the  return,  because  of 
economies  in  management  which  can  be  intro- 
duced in  the  larger  business. 

Such  a  statement  belongs  in  the  primary  de- 
partment of  finance.  Yet  how  many  men  be- 
lieve it  to-day?  How  many  deluded  city  people 
go  to  the  farm  expecting  big  returns  from  lit- 
tle capital?  There  will  be  less  trouble  in  the 
world  when  people  have  elemental  facts  clearly 
before  them. 

If  a  man  invests  his  money  in  bonds  or  stocks, 
or  puts  it  away  in  a  savings  bank  he  expects  to 
receive  interest  for  that  money.  If  a  man  goes 
to  an  office  every  day  he  expects  to  receive  a 
pay  envelope  at  the  end  of  the  week.  If  he  in- 
vests his  money  in  the  concern  for  which  he 
works  he  will  expect  pay  for  his  money  and  pay 
for  his  work.  Capital  is  needed  to  provide  an 
opportunity  for  the  man  to  work,  but  man's 
work  is  required  to  give  capital  an  opportunity 
to  earn  interest.  Each  must  pay  the  other  and 
any  system  of  accounting  must  take  cognizance 
of  this  fact. 


22      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

The  farm  owner  puts  both  capital  and  work 
into  his  farm  business  and  he  should  be  paid 
for  both — interest  on  his  money  and  wages  for 
his  time. 

When  we  realize  that  farming  is  a  conserva- 
tive business,  and  the  rate  of  return  therefore 
low,  we  begin  to  see  why  the  small  farm  cannot 
pay. 

Because  of  unusual  ability  the  individual  may 
be  capable  of  earning  a  large  wage,  but  that  ca- 
pability is  very  much  more  likely  to  bring  re- 
wards in  a  less  conservative  business  than  farm- 
ing. There  are  opportunities  for  speculation 
in  agriculture.  If  the  farmer  devotes  his  whole 
place  to  raising  potatoes  in  a  year  when  that 
crop  brings  a  high  price  he  will  receive  the  re- 
turn of  speculation. 

Without  sufficient  money  the  farmer  cannot 
even  earn  interest  on  that  which  he  has,  let 
alone  earn  a  wage  for  himself.  In  the  city  a 
man  may  run  a  business  on  other  people's  capi- 
tal and  be,  in  reality,  an  employee.  The  law- 
yer is  a  clerk  for  his  clients,  the  insurance  agent 
is  an  employee,  the  stock  broker  is  working  for 


CAPITAL  NECESSAEY  IN  FAKMING    23 

his  customers  on  commission  which  is  merely  a 
euphonious  name  for  wages.  But  the  farmer 
is  neither  an  employee  nor  a  broker;  he  is 
working  for  himself  and  must  supply  all  the 
capital  needed  in  his  business. 

The  charge  for  the  farmer's  labor  takes  prec- 
edent of  every  other.  The  money  invested  in 
a  farm  cannot  hope  to  bring  in  a  return  except 
through  a  man's  labor.  It  is  illogical  to  expect 
a  small  capital  to  pay  a  man  three  hundred  dol- 
lars a  year  and  earn  interest  besides.  Indeed, 
it  is  asking  dollars  to  be  unusually  nimble  to 
expect  them  even  to  provide  a  man  with  the 
opportunity  to  earn  day  wages  unless  they  are 
present  in  sufficient  numbers. 

How  does  this  theory  work  out  in  practice? 
In  one  section  in  New  York  State  not  a  single 
man  who  had  less  than  four  thousand  dollars 
invested  in  his  farm  made  a  labor  income  of 
$1,000.00,  and  only  one  made  $800.00.  When 
we  reach  those  with  an  investment  of  from 
$4,000.00  to  $6,000.00  we  find  one  man  in  twelve 
making  three  dollars  a  day  for  his  time  and 
work.    But  when  we  look  among  the  farmers 


24      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

who  have  an  investment  of  $15,000.00  we  find 
that  forty-six  per  cent,  of  them  made  more  than 
$1,000.00  a  year,  over  and  above  interest  on 
their  investment.  The  mere  use  of  that  amount 
of  money  in  the  business  allowed  them  to  pay 
interest  on  it  and  to  receive  a  good  wage  for 
their  time. 

The  small  farms  were  not  big  enough  busi- 
nesses to  pay.  When  the  total  income  of  a 
man  is  $500.00  it  is  difficult  to  make  much  of  a 
net  income.  Even  fifty  per  cent,  profit  will  not 
pay  him  the  wages  of  a  hired  man,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  interest. 

The  need  for  money  is  more  pressing  than  is 
the  need  for  its  proper  distribution.  A  man 
without  capital  is  almost  helpless,  but  the  one 
who  invests  it  with  poor  judgment  is  simply 
handicapped.  The  average  cost  for  labor  on 
the  farms  of  the  country  is  somewhere  in  the 
vicinity  of  forty  per  cent,  of  all  costs,  but  we 
have  found  that  on  the  large  farms  one  hundred 
dollars '  worth  of  labor  farms  five  times  the  area 
that  it  will  on  the  small  farms.  No  wonder  the 
big  farmer  makes  money ! 


CAPITAL  NECESSAEY  IN  FAEMING    25 

The  most  important  factor  in  successful  farm- 
ing is  the  size  of  the  business.  The  highest 
profits  are  made  when  size,  diversity,  and  good 
production  are  combined  in  a  well-balanced 
business ;  but  it  is  almost  impossible  to  make  a 
large  profit  unless  one  has  plenty  of  capital 
with  which  to  work. 

Illinois,  Indiana,  and  Iowa  are  wealthy  farm- 
ing communities.  The  land  is  productive  and 
conditions  are  propitious.  Yet  when  all  the 
farms  in  one  county  of  each  state  were  investi- 
gated it  was  found  that  one  farmer  out  of  every 
three  was  paying  for  the  privilege  of  working 
on  his  own  farm.  He  had  to  work  with  his 
money  to  make  it  pay  interest.  The  family  lived 
well  because  the  capital  invested  paid  enough 
to  allow  of  good  living  but  the  head  of  the 
household  was  working  for  nothing. 

The  farmer  does  not  talk  in  terms  of  finance 
but  he  knows  more  about  the  business  of  farm- 
ing than  people  give  him  credit  for.  The  Illi- 
nois owner  of  a  farm  does  not  exert  himself 
to  make  a  labor  income,  because  he  has  enough 
to  live  on  without  it,  but  the  tenant  farmer  of 


26      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

that  state  exerts  himself.  His  books  are  bal- 
anced for  him  each  year.  He  must  pay  interest 
to  the  landlord  and  have  enough  to  live  on 
left  over.  His  own  investment  is  usually  too 
small  to  pay  any  considerable  part  of  his  living, 
and  there  is  little  chance  for  him  to  misunder- 
stand his  position.  The  tenant  farmer  all  over 
the  country  makes  more  money  on  his  capital 
than  does  the  owner. 

The  tenant  farmer  occupies  a  strong  strategic 
position  in  the  business  of  farming  to-day.  He 
has  the  advantage  of  the  use  of  the  combined 
capital  furnished  by  himself  and  his  landlord 
and  he  has  the  initiative  furnished  by  the  neces- 
sity for  earning  a  labor  income  over  and  above 
the  interest  demanded  by  his  landlord's  in- 
vestment. 

The  results  found  in  Indiana,  Illinois,  and 
Iowa  are  only  typical  of  those  found  elsewhere ; 
for  wherever  a  community  becomes  so  pros- 
perous that  the  farmers  can  live  on  the  returns 
from  their  farm  investment,  the  labor  income 
begins  to  flatten  out.    Necessity  ceases  to  push. 

A  hired  manager  rarely  makes  a  farm  pay. 


CAPITAL  NECESSARY  IN  FARMING    27 

It  is  seemingly  impossible  for  one  man  to  run 
a  farm  for  another  and  make  it  a  business  suc- 
cess. 

The  city  man  who  wishes  to  leave  his  present 
position  to  take  up  farming  should  remember 
that  the  average  farmer,  trained  to  the  work 
from  his  youth,  does  not  make  day  wages  unless 
he  has  a  capital  investment  of  $4,000.  And 
after  a  full  day's  toil  the  wages  of  a  farm  hand 
will  not  look  very  large  to  the  man  from  the 
city  when  he  compares  them  with  the  weekly 
check  to  which  he  has  been  accustomed. 

There  are  various  ways  to  decrease  the  farm 
capital.  A  fancy  barn  that  costs  more  than  a 
barn  has  any  right  to,  judged  by  the  capacity  of 
the  animals  housed  therein  to  make  returns,  is 
one  way.  A  set  of  ' 'model' '  chicken  houses  will 
cost  more  than  the  hens  can  hope  to  repay. 
Running  a  farm  on  land  that  has  been  exploited 
to  more  than  its  value  for  agricultural  pur- 
poses is  another  way.  Equipping  a  place  with 
too  many  horses  and  keeping  them  sleek  and 
well  groomed  is  another  method  adapted  to  re- 
ducing the  profits  of  a  farm.    Too  many  men 


28      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

for  the  work  is  a  certain  way  to  the  poor-house. 
Few  farmers  make  these  mistakes,  while  most 
city  men  make  some  of  them. 

There  is  a  way  td  increase  the  capital  and 
that  is  to  rent  a  place  and  so  let  the  landlord 
provide  the  real  estate.  Then  all  of  the  farm- 
er's capital  can  be  pnt  into  producing  stock  and 
equipment.  This  is  a  thoroughly  practicable 
method  and  one  that  is  being  increasingly  put 
into  practice  by  young  country-bred  farmers  all 
over  the  United  States. 

It  is  better  to  hire  a  good  farm  than  to  own 
a  poor  one. 

The  reader  may  be  discouraged  by  this  list 
of  troubles  in  the  way  of  the  farmer.  They  are 
given  because  the  knowledge  may  save  him  a  lot 
of  worry  and  any  amount  of  tribulation  if  he 
decides  to  try  farming. 


CHAPTEE  III 


DIVERSITY 


There  are  three  big  reasons  for  diversity  on 
the  farm. 

Diversity  is  an  insurance  against  crop  fail- 
ure, it  is  a  method  of  equalizing  work  through- 
out the  season,  and  it  almost  automatically 
provides  a  rotation  of  crops. 

There  are  three  little  reasons  against  diver- 
sity, and  they  are: 

First,  that  the  specialized 'workman  becomes 
more  skillful  than  the  one  who  does  many  kinds 
of  work.  Second,  a  farm  with  one  crop  can 
have  a  better  supply  of  tools  adapted  to  that 
crop  than  can  one  with  many  industries.  Third, 
a  small  farm  can  do  business  on  a  larger  scale 
if  all  the  product  is  in  one  specialty.  It  is 
sometimes  given  as  a  favorable  factor  for  spe- 
cialized farming  that  it  is  easier  for  the  farmer 

29 


30      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

to  get  a  vacation,  but  this  is  merely  another 
way  of  stating  that  such  farming  does  not  pro- 
vide work  throughout  the  year. 

Insurance  against  crop  failure  is  especially 
important,  because  the  risks  are  many.  The 
manufacturer  buys  his  raw  material,  makes  it 
up  into  the  finished  product  and  sells  that  com- 
pleted product.  His  risk  is  the  chance  that  the 
selling  price  may  be  below  the  cost  of  the 
raw  material  plus  the  expense  of  finishing  it. 
Weather  conditions  cannot  prevent  him  from 
turning  the  crude  article  into  the  refined,  and 
he  can  insure  himself  against  fire  and  strikes. 

The  farmer  puts  his  seed  into  the  ground  in 
hopeful  anticipation  that  weather  and  insects 
will  permit  it  to  grow,  that  he  will  be  allowed 
to  harvest  the  crop,  and  finally,  that  he  will  be 
able  to  sell  that  crop  at  a  price  which  will  yield 
a  profit.  Continued  rains  may  rot  the  seed; 
late  frosts  may  kill  the  young  shoots ;  bugs  may 
devour  the  older  plants;  early  freezes  or  hail- 
storms may  destroy  the  crop  at  the  last  mo- 
ment; or  wet  weather  may  interfere  with  har- 
vesting. 


DIVERSITY  31 

Elementary  business  prudence  suggests  in- 
surance or  a  division  of  risks;  and  that  is  one 
thing  that  diversity  does  for  the  farmer.  Early 
rains  will  help  the  hay  crop  and  hinder  certain 
others ;  hot  days  and  nights  will  make  the  corn 
grow  but  worry  the  cows ;  late  rains  may  give 
an  extra  cut  of  rowen  even  while  they  cause 
the  potatoes  to  decay  in  the  ground.  The  price 
of  any  one  crop  may  be  abnormally  low  in  any 
given  year,  but  the  chance  of  hitting  a  wrong 
market  with  many  is  reduced  with  every  addi- 
tional crop.  It  is  better  to  have  the  income  dis- 
tributed throughout  the  year,  for  it  is  then 
easier  to  make  it  meet  the  demands.  If  capital 
is  limited,  money  must  be  borrowed  to  meet  the 
expenses  and  then  paid  off  at  the  end  of  the 
season  when  the  crops  are  sold.  This  is  un- 
pleasant, for  one  likes  to  have  the  "feel"  of  a 
little  money  once  in  a  while.  If  enough  money 
is  within  reach  to  pay  expenses,  then  a  lump 
sum  in  the  bank  is  dangerous,  as  it  begets  the 
habit  of  spending.  More  than  either  of  these  is 
the  mental  effect  of  having  small  amounts  drib- 
bling in  throughout  the  year.    It  keeps  up  a 


32      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

man's  courage  and  makes  him  face  the  world 
with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye.  This  phase  of  the 
matter  is  especially  important  for  a  man  from 
the  city,  accustomed  to  weekly  or  monthly 
checks.  Despise  not  the  cow,  with  her  daily 
yield  of  milk  and  butter. 

Diversity  equalizes  the  farm  work  and 
spreads  it  over  a  larger  part  of  the  season. 
Even  the  cautious  writers  of  the  Bureau  of 
Farm  Management  at  Washington  forget  their 
habitual  care  when  writing  of  diversity.  One 
of  them  says :  "If  the  working  equipment  can 
be  all  kept  busy  on  paying  enterprises,  success 
is  almost  assured.' ' 

Labor  is  the  chief  item  of  cost  in  farming. 
Large  area  contributes  to  economy  in  labor; 
therefore  the  size  of  the  farm  is  important. 
Capital  is  needed  to  buy  the  large  farm  or  to 
intensify  the  few  acres  of  the  florist  or  the 
truck  gardener  so  as  to  economize  labor.  Diver- 
sity is  as  important  as  either  size  or  capital, 
because  it  contributes  to  economy  of  labor  and 
the  utilization  of  equipment.  It  corresponds 
in  business  to  the  use  of  the  by-product  which 
often  makes  the  whole  profit  of  the  concern, 


DIVERSITY  33 

while  the  main  product  is  simply  run  at  cost 
or  even  a  little  below. 

The  hardest  problem  which  the  farmer  has 
is  to  plan  tne  various  enterprises  on  his  farm  to 
yield  the  greatest  yearly  return.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  pick  out  the  one  most  profitable  en- 
terprise, but  he  must  determine  the  combina- 
tion which,  taken  together,  will  produce  the 
biggest  profit,  and  that  means  very  largely  the 
most  persistent  and  profitable  use  of  men  and 
horses. 

The  old-time  farmer  answered  it  with  the 
single  crop  of  the  dairy.  Milking  kept  him 
fairly  busy  throughout  the  year,  and  the  har- 
vest season  found  him  overworked  for  a  few 
weeks.  He  could  milk  ten  cows  and  have  plenty 
of  time  to  drive  to  the  creamery  and  stop  a 
while  at  the  store.  It  was  pleasant  and  profit- 
able, but  it  was  too  simple  and  competition 
entered  into  the  game.  The  production  of  milk 
and  butter  increased  until  they  were  sold  at  a 
price  that  did  not  pay  the  producer  full-time 
wages  for  half-time  work.  This  is  the  con- 
dition on  many  farms  to-day,  for  all  of  the 
owners  have  not  learned  to  change  their  ways, 


34      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

and  the  average  cow  does  not  pay  at  the  present 
price  of  milk  or  butter.  But  the  cow  can  be 
the  most  valuable  animal  on  the  place.  If  she 
is  to  be  kept  as  the  single  crop  of  the  farm  she 
must  be  unusually  good  to  pay ;  but  if  she  is  to 
be  used  simply  as  the  principal  product,  then 
she  is  profitable  to  the  whole  organization  even 
if  she  herself  does  not  produce  a  profit,  for  she 
keeps  the  organization  and  the  organization 
can  be  used  with  small  added  expense  to  pro- 
duce by-products  that  will  yield  a  profit  to  the 
farmer. 

The  simplest  way  to  understand  the  results 
of  diversity  is  to  study  a  couple  of  actual  farm 
accounts.  These  are  not  presented  as  typical 
farms  but  are  used  simply  to  illustrate  the  point 
in  discussion. 

FARM  NUMBER  ONE.      211  ACRES 

Capital 
4  horses,  31  cows,  30  sheep, 

other  stock $3,497.00 

Land,  tools,  etc 11,562.00 


$15,059.00 


DIVERSITY  35 

Receipts 

Wheat  $   357.00 

Oats 366.00 

Buckwheat 20.00 

Hay 110.00 

Potatoes  1,797.00 

Apples    12.00 

Cabbage   118.00 

Milk 3,841.00 

Cattle    536.00 

Eggs   69.00 

Lambs 224.00 

Wool 63.00   

$7,513.00 

Expenses 

Labor  and  board $1,286.00 

Seed    90.00 

Feeds    1,193.00 

Fertilizer  78.00 

Machinery   93.00 

Buildings  and  fences 150.00 

Miscellaneous   319.00 

$3,209.00 

Farm  income  $4,304.00 

Interest  on  capital  at  5% 753.00 

Labor  income $3,551.00 


36      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

If  this  farmer  had  sold  only  milk  and  cattle 
his  receipts  would  have  been  $4,377.00,  which 
would  have  left  him  a  labor  income  of  only 
$415.00.  Or,  taking  out  all  the  expenses  which 
could  possibly  be  charged  against  the  additional 
crops : 

Extra  labor $500.00 

Seeds 75.00 

Fertilizer 78.00       $415.00 

Machinery  (%)    46.50 

Miscel.  (y2)  159.50 

859.00 


Labor  income $1,274.00 

as  against  $3,551  for  the  diversified  farm.  In 
business  parlance  this  difference  is  the  value  of 
the  by-products. 

FARM  NUMBER  TWO.      225  ACRES 

Capital 
6  horses,  30  cows,  20  heif- 
ers, 3  "bulls,  other  stock .  $5,036.00 
Real  estate,  tools,  etc 16,750.00 

$21,786.00 


DIVERSITY  37 

Receipts 

Milk  retailed   $6,400.00 

Cattle 2,255.00 

Miscel 641.00  ( 

$9,296.00 

Expenses 

Labor  and  board $525.00 

Seeds   50.00 

Feeds 570.00 

Lime 50.00 

Buildings  and  repairs  . . .  500.00 

Machinery  and  repairs . . .  85.00 

All  else  110.00 

$1,890.00 

Farm  income  $7,406.00 

Interest  5%    1,089.00 

Family  labor  100.00 

Labor  income  (father  and  son) $6,217.00 

Apparently  this  farmer  specialized  on  dairy- 
ing, but  in  reality  he  diversified,  for  he  (1)  pro- 
duced market  milk,  (2)  raised  pure-bred  cattle, 
(3)  retailed  milk. 


38      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

Let  us  figure  on  the  additional  profit  which 
this  diversification  brought  to  him. 

If  his  cows  had  done  as  well  as  those  on  Farm 
No.  1  he  would  have  received  for  milk  at  whole- 
sale $3,900.00.  If  his  stock  had  sold  for  the 
same  price  as  those  on  Farm  No.  1  he  would 
have  had  a  cattle  income  of  $750.00.  The  mis- 
cellaneous items  would  have  remained  the  same, 
giving  total  receipts  of 

Expenses $5,291.00 

Farm  Income 1,890.00 

$3,401.00 

Interest  $1,089.00 

Family  labor 100.00 

1,189.00 

Labor  income $2,212.00 

The  diversity  of  retailing  the  milk  and  raising 
pure-bred  stock  made  an  additional  profit  of 
$4,005.00. 

These  are  extreme  cases  and  must  not  be 
taken  as  typical,  but  they  serve  to  show  the  ad- 


DIVERSITY  39 

vantage  of  diversity  in  farm  management.  An 
increase  of  25%  to  100%  in  receipts,  with  very 
little  added  cost,  is,  however,  fairly  represen- 
tative. 


CHAPTER  IV 


BIG  CROPS  VS.   NORMAL 


Pliny  quotes  a  maxim  of  the  ancients: 
"  Nothing  is  so  disadvantageous  as  to  cultivate 
the  land  in  the  highest  style  of  perfection." 

Modern  theorists  advocate  intensive  cultiva- 
tion of  the  land.  Back-to-the-landers  have  set 
forth  to  prove  this  contention.  They  have 
raised  two  hundred  bushels  where  but  one  grew 
before  and  have  felt  that  they  were  teaching 
the  community  a  lesson  in  agriculture. 

I  remember  the  feeling  of  elation  with  which 
I  compared  potato  yields  with  the  shrewdest 
farmer  in  the  neighborhood.  At  this  moment 
I  can  see  the  twinkle  in  his  eye  as  he  nodded  his 
head  in  approval  and  said,  "Pretty  good  yield, 
that. p '  The  next  year  his  potato  yield  remained 
at  the  same  old  figure  of  one  hundred  bushels, 

40 


BIG  CEOPS  vs.  NORMAL  41 

He  did  not  profit  by  the  lesson ;  but  I  did,  for  I 
began  to  figure  up  the  costs. 

I  raised  two  hundred  bushels  of  potatoes  and 
sold  them  for  seventy-five  cents  a  bushel.  My 
receipts  were  $150.00.  But  the  costs  were 
$148.00.  I  made  a  profit  of  $2.00  on  the  trans- 
action. 

My  neighbor  had  one  hundred  bushels  to  sell 
for  which  he  received  $75.00.  His  expenses 
were  $66.00,  and  his  profit  $9.00. 

Neither  of  us  got  the  best  possible  return. 
If  he  had  used  imported  seed  and  a  little  more 
fertilizer,  probably  his  returns  would  have  been 
higher,  while  it  is  quite  possible  that  I  could 
have  cut  my  fertilizer  bill  and  my  spraying  costs 
to  advantage.  But  the  point  is  not  what  might 
have  happened  but  what  did.  The  way  to  make 
money  on  potatoes  is  to  have  the  cost  per  bushel 
less  than  the  price  at  which  they  are  sold.  My 
neighbor  beat  me;  his  farming  experience  was 
a  better  business  asset  than  my  imported  ideas 
of  big  yields. 

The  next  year  I  raised  my  yield  and  inci- 
dentally the  costs.     My  land  produced  three 


42      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

hundred  bushels  of  potatoes,  but  I  established  a 
market  for  my  product  at  a  higher  price  than 
my  neighbor  could  command.  And  I  did  it  be- 
cause of  the  confidence  which  the  good  yield 
gave  me.  I  became  a  salesman.  I  sold  to  the 
best  stores  at  a  higher  price  and  held  a  quantity 
of  potatoes  for  sale  as  "seed"  at  a  price  deter- 
mined by  the  quantity  produced  per  acre  in  my 
field. 

My  neighbor  was  the  better  farmer,  but  I  was 
the  better  salesman.  We  each  won  out  in  our 
own  specialty. 

Our  section  is  not  a  potato  region;  neither 
soil  nor  physical  characteristics  are  adapted  to 
their  economical  cultivation,  and  so  the  cost 
figures  have  no  value  save  to  illustrate  a  single 
concrete  instance  of  Yankee  shrewdness  vs.  un- 
digested "book  learning.' ' 

The  beginner  is  sure  to  overestimate  the  im- 
portance of  large  returns  per  acre.  He  cannot 
banish  from  his  mind  the  image  of  the  big  crop 
as  a  badge  of  success  in  agriculture.  He  will 
point  to  the  comparative  per  acre  yield  of  pota- 
toes in  this  country  and  Germany  and  conclude 


BIG  CROPS  vs.  NORMAL  43 

that  the  American  farmer  does  not  know  his 
business,  for  "made  in  Germany' '  was  once  the 
slogan  of  constructive  ability. 
Here  are  some  of  the  figures  taken  from  New 

York  farms  : 

Potatoes     Oats         Hay 

Rent  of  land $4.42  $4.09  $3.78 

Cost    of   man,    horse 

and  equipment  labor    42.19  11.15  4.49 

Other  costs 22.00  6.28  3.44 

Total  costs $68.61      $21.52      $11.71 

The  use  of  the  land  is  about  one-sixteenth  the 
cost  of  growing  potatoes.  It  is  less  than  one- 
fifth  the  cost  of  the  oat  crop  and  a  third  that  of 
the  cost  of  a  hay  crop.  If  the  farmer  troubles 
himself  about  the  cost  of  the  land  for  the  potato 
crop  he  may  overlook  some  other  figures. 

A  man  cannot  plant  more  than  an  acre  a  day 
by  hand,  but  a  man,  a  team,  and  a  $50.00  ma- 
chine can  plant  five  acres  in  a  day.  A  man  can- 
not dig  an  acre  of  potatoes  in  less  than  six  days, 
and  he  will  be  mighty  tired  at  the  end  of  the 
sixth  day  even  at  that.     But  a  man,  a  four- 


44      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FABMING 

horse  team  and  a  $100.00  digger  will  put  the  po- 
tatoes from  six  acres  on  top  of  the  ground 
inside  of  ten  hours. 

Besides  the  direct  saving  in  costs,  which 
amounts  to  many  times  the  land  rent,  is  the  item 
of  insurance ;  for,  when  a  crop  is  ready  to  har- 
vest, the  sooner  it  is  put  under  cover  the  fewer 
the  chances  for  loss  from  the  elements. 

The  problem  of  Germany  has  been  to  be  self- 
sustaining  on  a  given  amount  of  land ;  the  prob- 
lem of  the  American  farmer  is  entirely  differ- 
ent.   Each  knows  his  own  business. 

The  following  table  of  costs  of  increasing  the 
wheat  yield  is  taken  from  a  report  of  Sir  John 
Lawes  and  covers  experiments  over  a  period  of 
fifty  years.  Wheat  is  figured  at  a  dollar  a  bushel 
and  43  pounds  of  nitrogen  at  $6.50. 

Value    Cost  of 


of 

gain  in 

Yield    Gain 

gain 

nitrogen  Profit 

Plot  No.  5    15 

Plot  No.  6    24        9 

$9.00 

$6.50          $2.50 

Plot  No.  7    33        9 

9.00 

6.50           2.50 

Plot  No.  8    36%    3% 

3.75 

6.50  Loss  2.75 

BIG  CROPS  vs.  NORMAL  45 

The  practical  farmer  will  figure  on  the  net 
cost  before  he  concludes  to  add  nitrogen  to  his 
land.  It  will  cost  him  fifty  cents  a  bushel  to 
raise  wheat;  so  instead  of  showing  a  profit 
every  bushel  of  increased  yield  in  the  above 
table  shows  an  actual  loss.  The  old  fellows 
were  right :  it  is  '  '  disadvantageous  to  cultivate 
land  in  the  highest  style  of  perfection. %  9 

It  is  only  when  a  shortage  of  land  and  an  in- 
creased supply  of  labor  changes  the  proportion 
between  labor  costs  and  land  rent  that  it  is  wise 
to  begin  to  economize  in  land  by  putting  more 
labor  on  each  acre  to  increase  its  yield.  The 
slow  working  of  the  factors  controlling  this 
principle  are  to  be  seen  in  the  crop  yields  in 
this  country  to-day.  Land  is  rising  in  value 
while  the  productive  cost  of  labor,  thanks  to 
modern  machinery,  has  fallen;  therefore  the 
trend  on  production  is  upward.  Man  is  con- 
servative and  does  not  keep  up  with  the  pro- 
cession; so  we  have  the  result  that  the  best 
farmers  are  raising  25%  more  crops  per  acre 
than  the  average.  "Which  is  merely  another  way 


46      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

of  saying  that  the  poorer  farmers  are  lagging 
behind  the  economical  unit  of  yield. 

In  China  land  is  high  and  labor  low,  so  we 
have  the  extreme  case  of  transplanting  separate 
plants  of  wheat  so  as  to  get  the  highest  possible 
yield  from  the  acre,  a  practice  that  is  beyond 
the  conception  of  the  American  mind. 

No  rule,  save  the  general  one  that  125%  of 
the  average  yield  of  this  country  is  usually  de- 
sirable, can  be  given  for  the  amount  of  crops 
which  land  in  the  United  States  should  produce. 
Each  farmer  must  work  out  the  profit  and  loss 
account  for  himself.  His  job  is  to  make  the 
largest  possible  difference  between  cost  of  pro- 
duction and  selling  price  for  his  farm  products. 
If  a  special  market  raises  the  selling  price,  the 
cost  of  production  may  rise  correspondingly 
and  yet  the  producer  not  lose  money  despite  his 
uneconomic  handling  of  his  field  costs.  The  law 
of  compensation  is  pretty  certain  to  care  for 
most  discrepancies,  and  the  man  who  can  sell  to 
the  best  advantage  seldom  has  the  ability  to 
produce  in  the  most  economical  way. 

A  logical  deduction  is  that  in  an  era  of  high 


BIG  CROPS  vs.  NORMAL  47 

prices  the  yield  per  acre  increases.  The  higher 
the  price  at  which  wheat  can  be  sold,  the  more 
fertilizer  the  farmer  can  afford  to  put  on  his 
land,  the  more  work  he  can  give  his  fields,  and 
the  bigger  the  yield  to  the  acre.  The  reverse  is 
true  in  practice.  The  higher  the  price  of  wheat 
the  less  the  average  yield  per  acre  over  a  period 
of  years. 

The  reason  is  not  hard  to  discover.  I  made 
part  of  it  myself.  When  the  war  put  wheat  over 
the  dollar  mark  I  planted  wheat  on  land  that 
was  not  adapted  to  it.  My  yield  was  away  be- 
low the  average  of  the  country.  What  I  did  on 
my  farm,  farmers  everywhere  did.  Farmers 
know  how  to  increase  production,  and  the 
cheapest  way  is  to  plant  more  land,  not  to  spend 
more  money  on  land  already  in  use. 

The  farmer  knew  more  about  the  subject  than 
the  economist,  although  he  could  not  express 
himself  in  terms  of  diminishing  returns  or  van- 
ishing profits.  His  bank  account  was  less  liable 
to  make  errors  than  the  theories  of  his  advisers. 

When  cotton  sells  at  five  cents  per  pound  it 
can  be  profitably  raised  only  on  such  land  as  is 


48      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FABMING 

especially  adapted  to  its  culture.  The  yield  per 
acre  will  be  high  because  the  land  will  be  fertile. 
When  cotton  brings  ten  cents  per  pound  it  can 
be  raised  successfully  on  a  still  greater  acreage 
because  it  will  not  take  as  fertile  land  to  keep 
the  cost  under  ten  cents  as  under  five.  When  it 
can  be  sold  for  fifteen  cents  a  large  acreage  is 
given  over  to  its  production.  The  higher  the 
price,  the  lower  the  average  yield  per  acre. 

Long  staple  cotton  was  only  successfully 
raised  on  the  Sea  Islands  of  the  Carolinas.  The 
suitable  land  was  strictly  limited.  When  the 
price  went  up,  the  yield  per  acre  went  up  too. 


CHAPTER  V 

KOTATION  OF  CKOPS 

The  worth  in  dollars  and  cents  of  a  good 
system  of  rotation  is  suggested  by  some  experi- 
ments conducted  at  the  Minnesota  University 
Farm. 

One  acre  on  which  wheat  was  grown  continu- 
ously yielded  a  product  worth  $13.08  per  year. 
The  cost,  including  rent  of  land,  labor,  hire  of 
machinery,  etc.  was  $9.94,  leaving  a  net  profit  of 
$3.14. 

On  another  acre  wheat  was  grown  in  the 
standard  five-year  rotation  and  the  average 
gross  value  of  the  crops  for  the  five  years 
amounted  to  $15.89,  produced  at  a  cost  of  $10.02. 
This  left  a  net  profit  of  $5.87  per  acre,  per  year. 

An  analysis  of  the  soil  showed  that  the  rota- 
tion system  had  added  both  nitrogen  and  car- 
bon, while  the  continuous  cropping  had  reduced 


50      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

the  supply  of  both,  and  the  soil  was  in  better 
tilth,  or  mechanical  condition,  because  of  the 
various  crops.  In  other  words,  the  crops  paid 
the  farmer  for  the  privilege  of  adding  fertility 
to  his  soil. 

When  a  business  man  discovers  new  mach- 
inery that  will  add  87%  to  his  net  profits  and  at 
the  same  time  improve  the  condition  of  his 
plant,  he  promptly  scraps  his  old  machinery  and 
installs  the  new  style. 

The  rotation  used  at  the  Minnesota  Farm  did 
several  things.  It  raised  the  yield  of  wheat 
from  17.8  bushels  per  acre  to  26.  It  in- 
creased the  corn  yield  from  21.4  bushels  to 
50.9.  It  diversified  crops  by  adding  oats,  hay, 
and  pasture,  to  corn  and  wheat.  A  further 
profit,  a  by-product  of  the  business,  could  have 
been  added  by  feeding  these  stuffs  to  live  stock, 
thus  further  increasing  the  benefit  of  rotation. 
The  use  of  labor  was  spread  over  a  longer 
period  and  the  order  of  crops  was  so  arranged 
as  to  lower  the  cost  of  each.  The  grass  seed 
was  sown  with  the  wheat,  thus  one  preparation 
of  the  ground  served  for  the  two  crops.    Pas- 


EOTATION  OF  CROPS  51 

ture  followed  the  hay  and  was  merely  another 
crop  gathered  from  the  same  planting.  The 
one-crop  system  belongs  in  the  farm  scrap-heap. 

For  planning  a  system  of  crop  rotation  the 
farmer  has  need  of  a  degree  of  intelligence  that 
is  not  often  let  loose  in  this  world.  He  must 
take  the  attitude  that  everybody  is  mostly  right 
but  a  little  wrong.  His  neighbors  have  had  the 
practical  experience  with  the  local  conditions, 
while  the  scientists  have  collected  a  vast 
amount  of  knowledge  unknown  to  the  average 
farmer.  A  judicious  blending  of  the  two  is  pre- 
sumably the  best.  But  it  is  very  risky  to  believe 
the  system  in  any  region  to  be  radically  wrong. 
The  farm  practice  in  Chester  County,  Pennsyl- 
vania, has  not  changed  materially  in  a  century 
and  a  quarter,  and  the  experts  have  no  radical 
changes  to  suggest  to  the  farmers  in  that  region 
to-day. 

I  went  straight  to  my  farm  from  a  four 
weeks '  course  at  an  agricultural  college.  If  ever 
a  smattering  of  knowledge  is  a  dangerous  pos- 
session it  is  in  farming.  I  looked  at  the  milk 
pails  of  the  old  owner,  who  had  run  the  place 


52      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

for  forty-seven  years,  and  I  gazed  at  the  steep 
pastures.  "Cows  cannot  pay  on  this  place," 
was  my  off-hand  decision.  I  watched  the  old 
man  handle  his  apple  crop.  His  trees  were  not 
properly  pruned ;  the  orchard  was  sprayed  at,  if 
the  fishing  season  did  not  interfere;  the  pick- 
ing was  done  carelessly  by  rough,  uninstructed 
help ;  and  the  sorting  and  packing  was  carried 
out  in  a  medieval  way.  "Hiram  is  wasting 
money  every  year  right  here,"  was  my  instant 
conclusion.  To  get  rid  of  the  cows  and  devote 
the  time  to  the  orchard  was  the  obvious  pro- 
cedure. I  learned  all  that  in  four  weeks.  It 
has  taken  me  a  good  many  years  to  unlearn  it. 
To-day  I  have  a  dairy — not  Hiram's  cows,  how- 
ever— and  I  am  running  a  general  farm  in  com- 
bination with  a  carefully  conducted  orchard. 
Now  I  am  making  up  the  money  that  I  lost  by 
overthrowing,  instead  of  improving  upon, 
Hiram's  system  of  cropping. 

The  odds  are  in  favor  of  your  neighbors ' 
being  right.  The  experts  at  the  colleges  have 
the  general  principles  down  pat.  Draw  cards 
from  both  sources,  but  do  not  believe  that  you 


EOTATION  OF  CROPS  53 

have  a  royal  flush  if  you  have  gone  against  the 
advice  of  either. 

There  are  so  many  factors  entering  into  the 
planning  of  any  place  that  it  requires  the  keen- 
est perception  to  balance  them  properly.  Dr. 
Warren,  one  of  the  leading  authorities  on  farm 
management  in  the  country,  presents  the  case 
for  rotation  thus : 

"  There  are  many  reasons  why  crop  rotation 
is  a  good  thing.  The  final  factor  that  forces 
farmers  to  change  crops  is  usually  either  weeds, 
insects,  or  diseases.  Crop  rotation  (1)  helps  to 
control  these  enemies;  (2)  may  provide  for 
keeping  up  the  humus  supply  of  the  soil;  (3) 
may  provide  for  the  growth  of  grass  or  leg- 
umes on  each  field;  (4)  often  saves  labor;  (5) 
may  keep  the  land  occupied  with  crops  a 
greater  part  of  the  time;  (6)  allows  for  the 
alternation  of  deep  and  shallow-rooted  crops; 
(7)  may  provide  for  a  balanced  removal  of 
plant  food;  (8)  may  control  toxic  substances; 
(9)  systematizes  farming, ' ' 

These  are  self-explanatory  to  even  laymen; 
save,  possibly,  number  eight.  It  is  believed  that 


54      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

the  roots  of  plants  give  off  substances  that  are 
poisonous  to  plants  of  the  same  species.  By  a 
change  of  crops  these  toxines  are  neutralized 
and  the  soil  is  made  wholesome  once  more  for 
the  original  crop. 

Plant  food,  to  be  available  for  the  growing 
crop,  must  be  supplied  in  a  soluble  form  in  con- 
tact with  the  roots  of  the  plant.  Plant  food  is 
made  soluble  by  the  decomposition  of  organic 
matter  and  disintegration  of  mineral  matter. 
Humus,  or  vegetable  matter,  in  the  soil  hastens 
this  process.  Moisture  is  usually  present  when 
humus  or  partially  decayed  manure  is  in  the 
soil,  and  such  material  permits  a  free  circula- 
tion of  air  and  prevents  baking  or  packing  of 
the  ground.  Decomposition  of  vegetable  matter 
takes  place  as  the  result  of  bacterial  action. 
These  bacteria  can  only  work  in  the  presence 
of  air  and  moisture,  hence  the  necessity  of 
humus.  This  decomposition  forms  acids  which, 
in  turn,  disintegrate  mineral  matter. 

The  entirely  supposititious  case  of  the  Stand- 
ard Oil  Company's  throwing  away  aniline  dyes 
and  purchasing  coloring  matter  for  their  kero- 


EOTATION  OF  CROPS  55 

sene  would  be  quite  analogous  to  the  case  of  the 
farmer  who  decided  against  the  use  of  a  rota- 
tion of  crops  and  bought  commercial  fertilizers 
to  keep  up  the  fertility  of  his  land. 

Diversity  and  rotation  of  crops  tackle  the 
same  proposition  from  different  angles  but  they 
arrive  at  much  the  same  result.  Rotation  is 
diversity  to  a  degree,  but  diversity  is  not  neces- 
sarily rotation.  Diversity,  ipso  facto,  is  a 
purely  business  proposition.  It  does  not  take 
account  of  the  fertility  of  the  soil  or  of  its  con- 
servation or  improvement.  It  divides  the  risks 
of  crop  failures,  and  makes  a  profitable  distri- 
bution of  labor.  Rotation  is  designed,  primar- 
ily, to  increase  crops  without  corresponding 
cost,  but  with  it  goes  the  corollary  of  increased 
fertility.  Incidentally  it  does  produce  diversity 
with  the  consequent  efficient  use  of  labor. 

When  crops,  per  acre,  can  be  increased  with- 
out additional  cost  for  fertilization  or  cultiva- 
tion, the  profits  rise  more  rapidly  than  the 
yields. 

The  following  figures  are  taken  from  careful 
experiments : 


56      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 


ield  of  Wheat 

Value 

Cost 

Profit 

10  bushels 

$7.42 

$7.31 

$  .11 

14  bushels 

10.39 

7.43 

2.96 

16  bushels 

11.87 

7.49 

4.38 

20  bushels 

14.84 

7.61 

7.23 

The  one  additional  charge  against  the  higher 
yield  is  the  cost  of  harvesting.  Land  rent,  tool 
hire,  labor  costs,  preparation  of  soil,  are  all  the 
same. 

In  planning  a  farm  cropping  system  there 
are  certain  general  principles  to  keep  in  mind. 

A  regular  rotation  gives  each  year  the  same 
number  of  acres  to  each  crop,  hence  provides 
more  constant  and  efficient  use  for  the  machin- 
ery. With  a  fairly  constant  supply  of  crops  the 
amount  of  stock  which  can  be  profitably  kept  is 
more  easily  determined. 

If  each  field  is  given  the  same  treatment 
through  each  series  of  years,  the  supply  of 
humus  will  be  added  at  regular  intervals  and 
an  evenly  distributed  amount  of  decaying  vege- 
table matter  be  kept  in  the  soil.  Thus  every 
part  of  the  farm  will  be  working  at  efficient 
speed. 


EOTATION  OF  CROPS  57 

As  large  an  acreage  as  possible  should  be 
provided  each  year  for  the  most  profitable  crop 
of  the  region.  In  Illinois,  the  maximum  acre- 
age possible  should  be  devoted  to  corn,  while  in 
New  York  and  New  England  much  attention 
should  be  devoted  to  hay,  and  this  regardless  of 
the  main  business  of  the  farms. 

In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  this  is  simply  repeat- 
ing what  we  have  said  before — follow  your 
neighbors  but  cut  the  production  costs  by  every 
practicable  method. 


CHAPTER  VI 

COMPETITION    AND    THE    LAWS    OF    PKICES 

Land  is  practically  unlimited,  and  labor  can 
always  be  had  at  a  price ;  therefore  competition 
in  farming  will  always  be  keen.  Crops  will  be 
produced  at  cost,  giving  the  farmer  but  a  fair 
return  for  his  work  and  the  use  of  his  capital. 

The  city  householder  pays  12  cents  a  quart 
for  milk  for  which  the  dairyman  receives  but 
6  cents.  If  all  delivery  charges  could  be  elimi- 
nated the  city  breakfast  tables  would  be  sup- 
plied with  milk  at  6,  or  at  the  outside  7,  cents  a 
quart.  Raise  the  price  even  a  quarter  of  a  cent 
and  the  contributing  territory  would  expand  in 
every  direction.  If  the  present  limit  of  profit- 
able haul  is  three  miles,  the  additional  price 
would  bring  milk  from  the  farm  four  miles  from 
the  railroad.  If  the  present  longest  run  of  a 
milk  train  is  one  hundred  miles,  the  additional 

58 


COMPETITION— LAWS  OF  PRICES       59 

price  would  send  the  trains  a  hundred  and 
twenty-five  miles  after  milk.  A  perfect  flood  of 
milk  would  be  diverted  from  the  cheese  factory 
and  the  butter  maker  and  flow  to  the  city. 

The  problem  of  the  middleman  (or  more 
properly  the  middle  charges,  is  a  problem  for 
the  consumer.  With  the  abolition  of  all  un- 
necessary costs  between  the  farm  and  the  kit- 
chen, the  whole  advantage  will  ultimately  go  to 
the  consumer.  Every  time  that  a  housewife 
orders  a  quart  of  potatoes  over  the  telephone 
she  is  paying  for  her  own  shiftless  method  sev- 
eral times  the  value  of  the  potatoes. 

Competition  will  always  limit  the  returns 
from  any  simple  conservative  operation.  If  big 
crops,  alone,  meant  success,  there  would  be  a 
flood  of  big  crops;  if  big  farms  meant  big  re- 
turns, small  farms  would  be  forced  out  of  busi- 
ness; if  a  lot  of  money  assured  the  farmer  a 
high  rate  of  return,  capital  would  gravitate  to- 
ward the  farm. 

The  owner  of  an  orange  grove  was  in  the 
possession  of  a  fortune  until  the  certainty  of 
the  profit  brought  sharp  competition.     Prices 


60      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

dropped  until  it  was  not  worth  while  to  pick 
and  pack  the  fruit  on  many  groves.  To  meet 
this  condition,  growers'  organizations  were 
formed,  which  bridged  some  of  the  existing  gap 
between  producer  and  consumer.  Such  share  of 
the  additional  price  as  rightfully  belonged  to 
the  grower  went  back  to  him.  If  this  becomes 
excessive,  further  competition  will  again  re- 
duce the  price. 

The  Oregon  apple  orchard  was  reckoned  with 
Government  bonds  for  safety  and  a  gold  mine 
for  yield.  The  owner  sat  at  ease  and  his  divi- 
dends rolled  in  upon  him.  It  was  too  easy;  a 
few  years  ago  the  apples  were  sold  at  less  than 
cost.  Competition  took  away  the  profits  and 
put  the  orchards  on  the  bargain-counter. 

Land,  labor,  orange  groves,  apple-trees,  cows, 
sheep,  can  be  had  in  any  amount ;  but  alone  they 
do  not  make  success.  The  supply  of  brains  that 
can  organize  a  profitable  farm  business  is 
strictly  limited,  and  the  city  can  outbid  the 
country  for  them ;  for,  in  the  nature  of  farming, 
it  is  a  small  enterprise  compared  with  a  city 
business.    The  farmer  needs  the  type  of  mind 


COMPETITION— LAWS  OF  PRICES      61 

that  can  utilize  the  by-product  to  the  nth  power. 
The  inherent  weakness  in  the  Western  or- 
chard was  the  one-crop  system.  The  distance  to 
market  was  a  further  limiting  factor,  for  only 
high-class  fruit  could  be  shipped  across  the 
continent ;  and  thus  we  have  the  orchardist  lim- 
ited not  alone  to  one  crop  but  to  one  grade  of 
that  crop.  Westerners  are  natural  boosters  and 
the  apple  growers  proceeded  to  advertise  their 
wares  and  to  create  a  market  for  them.  With 
fine  business  they  utilized  the  box  pack  and  set 
a  standard  in  grading  apples  that  put  the 
Oregon  fruit  on  a  pedestal.  It  is  not  especially 
difficult  to  raise  apples.  Your  neighbors  and 
the  local  experiment  station  can  supply  you 
with  all  needful  information.  If  there  is  an 
organization  for  packing  and  selling  the  fruit, 
anybody  can  raise  high-grade  apples.  Inevi- 
tably there  was  a  rush  to  the  apple  field.  City 
men,  without  the  first  idea  of  agriculture,  staked 
out  claims  in  this  field  of  gold.  " Apple  land" 
brought  hundreds  and  even  thousands  of  dollars 
an  acre.  Competition  was  unrestricted ;  but  the 
market  for  high-grade  fruit  was  limited.    When 


62      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FABMING 

the  new  orchards  came  into  bearing  the  slump 
occurred. 

It  took  less  time  for  the  new  orchards  to  grow 
under  the  impetus  of  Western  soil  conditions 
than  it  took  the  idea  of  apple  raising  to  perme- 
ate the  consciousness  of  the  Eastern  farmer. 
Apple  land  in  New  England  costs  ten  dollars  an 
acre.  There  is  a  market  for  high-grade  fruit 
and  a  practically  unlimited  market  for  the  lower 
grades  within  reach.  There  is  a  saving  in 
freight  of  forty-five  cents  a  box  and  in  time  of 
five  days,  in  favor  of  the  New  England  grower 
of  apples.  There  is  every  opportunity  for  di- 
versity of  crops,  from  the  dairy  to  the  raising 
of  beans,  open  to  the  Eastern  man.  But  it  takes 
intelligence  to  plan  a  diversified  farm.  The 
supply  of  brains  is  limited.  The  orchard  of  the 
general  farm  in  the  East  is  a  factor  of  per- 
manent importance. 

There  is  no  secure  ground  under  the  feet  of 
the  specialist  in  selling.  Special  markets  are 
desirable,  but  the  possessor  of  one  must  keep 
paddling  his  craft  or  he  will  suddenly  find  him- 
self in  the  trough  of  the  sea  instead  of  on  the 


COMPETITION— LAWS  OF  PEICES       63 

crest.  Other  men  will  find  ways  to  supply  the 
demand  at  cost.  One  man  may  possess  the 
ability  to  breed  cattle  of  unusual  worth.  The 
high  price  at  which  he  may  sell  these  creatures 
is  secured  because  of  his  knowledge  and  the 
money  price  which  it  is  worth.  When  other 
men  learn  the  trick  the  price  will  come  down  to 
cost. 

A  big  business  is  built  up  by  attention  to 
details.  A  jitney  bus,  with  a  five-cent  fare,  is 
likely  to  make  more  than  the  taxi-cab  with  a 
dollar  ante.  The  Standard  Oil  Company  prob- 
ably gets  the  larger  part  of  its  revenue  from 
once  unconsidered  trifles.  Gasoline  was  at  one 
time  a  waste  product,  aniline  dyes,  paraffin,  pe- 
troleum jelly,  and  a  multitude  of  other  minor 
products  now  swell  the  receipts. 

When  the  orchard  owner  sandwiches  the 
work  on  the  trees  between  the  chinks  of  other 
farm  work,  has  his  regular  men  prune  through 
the  winter  between  milking  jobs,  and  arranges 
his  crops  so  that  the  spraying  of  the  orchard 
comes  after  the  planting  of  one  lot  of  acres  and 
before  that  of  another  batch,  he  is  beginning  to 


64      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

put  the  cost  of  his  apples  where  it  is  hopeless 
for  the  specialized  orchardist  to  compete. 

The  Prince  of  Monaco  has  found  that  a  cer- 
tain percentage  charged  against  each  bet  made 
in  his  palaces  will  bring  him  in  a  fortune.  The 
deluded  players  look  only  for  the  big  returns 
and,  in  the  aggregate,  are  sure  to  lose.  The 
wise  farmer  will  work  out  the  best  system  of 
farming  for  his  particular  conditions  and  will 
stick  to  it,  knowing  that  in  the  long  run  he  will 
make  more  money  by  so  doing  than  by  trying  to 
hit  the  high  spots  each  season.  It  is  not  suffi- 
cient that  his  combination  pays  him  a  profit ;  it 
must  pay  him  the  best  profit  of  any  combination 
of  crops,  to  be  the  right  one  for  him  to  follow. 

After  a  year  of  good  prices  the  newspapers 
use  up  any  amount  of  perfectly  good  paper  in 
urging  the  farmers  to  increase  their  crops,  and 
statisticians  begin  to  figure  on  the  added  wealth 
that  would  come  to  the  State  if  the  farmers 
would  only  double  up  on  production.  Fortu- 
nately it  is  only  the  city  people  who  accept  this 
gratuitous  advice,  and  so  it  doesn't  matter.  One 
year  cabbages  may  sell  for  sixty  dollars  a  ton 


COMPETITION— LAWS  OF  PRICES     65 

and  the  next  be  so  low  that  they  are  left  to  rot 
in  the  field.  The  law  of  supply  and  demand  is 
not  directed  from  editorial  sanctums. 

In  1891  the  yield  of  potatoes  was  94  bushels 
per  acre  and  the  value  per  acre  was  $34.00.  In 
1892  the  yield  was  62  bushels  but  the  value  per 
acre  rose  to  $41.00.  In  1894  the  yield  was  the 
same  as  in  '92  but  the  value  was  only  $33.00. 
But  the  next  year  the  yield  jumped  to  101 
bushels  and  the  price  dropped  so  suddenly  that 
they  were  only  worth  $27.00,  or  one-half  as 
much,  per  bushel. 

In  the  corn  belt  the  oat  crop  is  raised  as  a 
by-product.  It  does  not  pay  of  itself  but  it  fits 
into  the  rotation  and  employs  labor  at  a  time 
when  it  otherwise  would  be  idle.  Planting  and 
harvesting  the  crop  do  not  conflict  with  the  care 
of  the  corn.  A  farmer  can  plant  all  the  corn 
that  he  can  cultivate  and  at  the  same  time  have 
many  acres  of  oats.  It  is  not  a  competitor  of 
the  corn  crop,  any  more  than  aniline  dye  is  a 
competitor  of  kerosene. 

The  local  market  is  always  the  best  so  far  as 
it  goes.    It  is  often  used  by  the  man  with  small 


66      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

capital,  who  retails  his  stuff  until  he  has  accu- 
mulated enough  money  to  go  into  the  bigger 
business  necessitating  a  wholesale  outlet.  Many 
small  towns  are  short  of  vegetables  and  milk. 
A  dairy  section  is  the  worst  place  in  the  world 
to  get  a  household  supply  of  milk.  So  long  as 
competition  is  avoided  the  retailer  has  a  tariff 
wall  of  two  freight  charges  and  two  commis- 
sions fighting  for  him.  To  ship  his  stuff  to  a 
wholesale  market  he  would  have  to  pay  one 
freight  and  one  commission.  To  have  stuff 
shipped  in  from  outside,  the  purchaser  would 
have  one  freight  charge  and  one  commission  to 
pay.  The  producer  who  sells  direct  saves  the 
double  charge.  The  climate  of  Alaska  is  not 
adapted  to  the  growing  of  vegetables,  yet  the 
raising  of  garden  truck  in  that  land  is  profit- 
able. A  tariff  wall  of  freight  charges  surrounds 
the  place. 

Neither  the  ebullitions  of  editors'  brains  nor 
acts  of  Congress  control  prices  for  farm  pro- 
ducts. The  farmer  must  look  further  than  his 
daily  paper  or  the  city  of  Washington  for  the 
laws  which  govern  his  business. 


CHAPTER  VII 

FITTING  SCHEME  TO  CONDITIONS 

The  man  who  makes  the  best  financial  success 
of  his  farm  is  the  one  who  best  fits  his  system 
to  his  individual  surroundings.  Rules  are  made 
for  average  conditions,  but  the  average  is  a 
composite  of  variations.  No  two  farms  will 
give  the  best  returns  from  exactly  the  same 
system  of  farming. 

Butter  making  on  the  farm  is  generally  a 
losing  proposition,  but  it  is  easy  to  imagine 
many  conditions  under  which  it  would  be  profit- 
able. The  dairyman  who  uses  extra  care  to 
keep  his  product  clean  is  throwing  away  the 
fruit  of  his  labors  if  he  sells  his  cream  where  it 
is  mixed  with  unclean  supplies  and  thus  brought 
down  to  the  lower  grade.  The  man  who  pays 
the  creamery  for  making  his  butter  while  he 
spends  the  equivalent  amount  of  time  on  the 

67 


68      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

road  hauling  his  product  to  the  creamery  or  at 
some  other  unproductive  work  is  giving  away 
the  price  of  the  work  done  at  the  creamery. 

Butter  made  from  clean  cream  under  sanitary 
conditions  is  worth  more  than  that  made  from 
the  average  creamery  cream.  The  farmer  who 
sells  such  butter  receives  more  money  for  a 
better  product  and  does  not  simply  ask  an  ad- 
ditional price  because  the  product  goes  out 
under  his  name.  In  this  sense  he  is  not  seek- 
ing a  special  market.  Whether  or  not  the  farm- 
er's  net  income  will  be  increased  if  he  spends 
his  time  in  cleanliness  in  the  dairy  and  in  con- 
verting his  clean  cream  into  a  high-grade  fin- 
ished product  is  purely  a  matter  of  the  indi- 
vidual conditions. 

The  ideal  condition,  it  goes  without  saying,  is 
the  proper  kind  of  cooperation  between  the 
farmers  of  the  neighborhood. 

Climate  and  soil  are  the  most  important  fac- 
tors to  consider  in  determining  what  crops  to 
grow.  Freight  and  express  rates  to  the  best 
markets  have  a  big  finger  in  the  pie;  and  the 
amount  of  land  available  to  compete  in  produc- 


FITTING  SCHEME  TO  CONDITIONS      69 

tion  must  be  considered.  But  all  of  these  may 
be  overcome  if  the  price  received  for  the  crop 
pays  for  the  added  expense.  Tomatoes  and 
cucumbers  are  grown  through  the  winter  under 
glass  in  New  York  and  under  the  sun  in  Flor- 
ida. The  cost  of  the  greenhouse  is  offset  by  the 
transportation  charge,  and  both  are  paid  for  by 
the  out-of-season  price. 

The  value  of  the  Connecticut  tobacco  crop  is 
surpassed  by  only  four  States  in  the  Union,  and 
each  of  the  four  has  eight  times  the  area  of  its 
New  England  competitor.  The  high  quality  of 
the  Northern  grown  tobacco,  combined  with  the 
limited  area  available  for  the  growing  of  this 
particular  grade,  permits  the  expensive  culture 
under  cloth. 

The  Oregon  orchardist  met  his  heavy  trans- 
portation charge  by  additional  labor  in  the  or- 
chard, which  produced  the  maximum  percent- 
age of  high-grade  fruit. 

If  a  farm  has  soil  especially  adapted  to  corn 
but  is  so  remote  that  the  freight  rate  to  a  corn 
market  eats  up  the  profit,  this  condition  can 
sometimes  be  entirely  met  by  feeding  all  the 


70      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAKMING 

grain  to  live  stock  on  the  place.  Pigs  trans- 
form corn  into  pork  and  at  the  same  time  con- 
dense it.  One  pound  of  pork  represents  five  to 
six  pounds  of  corn.  But  the  freight  rate  on 
pork  is  approximately  only  twice  that  on  corn, 
so  the  rate  per  pound  of  corn  as  represented  in 
pork  is  reduced  to  one-third  what  it  would  be 
if  shipped  in  its  original  shape. 

Again,  if  the  corn  is  sold  as  grain,  the  fer- 
tility of  the  farm  will  decrease,  and  the  yield 
per  acre  be  less  than  if  it  is  fed  to  live  stock. 
If  a  field  will  produce  30  bushels  of  corn  with- 
out manure  and  this  corn  is  sold  at  70  cents,  the 
gross  return  will  be  $21.00.  But  if  the  same 
field,  fertilized  by  having  all  the  corn  fed  to  live 
stock  and  the  manure  returned  to  the  ground, 
can  produce  80  bushels,  this  corn  can  be  fed  to 
live  stock  at  a  price  of  only  40  cents  and  yet 
the  gross  return  will  be  $32.00. 

Uncle  David  Enoch  was  right  when  he  said, 
1 '  I  get  the  profit  in  two  ways  when  I  feed  stock 
— the  profit  on  my  stock  and  the  enrichment  of 
my  farm." 

If  he  thus  builds  up  the  fertility  of  his  land 


FITTING  SCHEME  TO  CONDITIONS      71 

the  farmer  is  raising  the  productivity  of  his 
farm  and  by  intensive  cultivation  increasing  the 
size  of  his  business. 

The  American  farmer  fits  his  scheme  of  farm- 
ing to  his  conditions  by  increasing  the  yield  per 
man.  The  Oriental  cultivator  of  the  soil  lives 
by  forcing  the  production  per  acre;  for  in 
America  there  is  plenty  of  land  and  in  China 
plenty  of  labor.  It  is  not  uncommon  for  a  farm 
of  two  acres  to  support  a  Chinese  family  of 
twelve.  Certain  Western  wheat  farmers  raise 
a  crop  on  one-half  of  their  land  each  year  and 
plow  the  other  half  for  the  succeeding  season's 
crop,  thus  increasing  the  area  which  one  man 
can  cultivate  by  extending  the  time  of  plowing 
over  the  whole  season.  The  Chinese  rice  farmer 
raises  the  young  plants  in  a  seed  bed,  at  the 
last  moment  transplanting  them  into  the  fields 
which  have  meantime  been  growing  other  crops. 
He  thus  adds  30  to  50  days '  use  of  his  land  at  a 
heavy  cost  of  labor.  The  American  is  a  bull 
on  his  own  labor  but  a  bear  on  land,  while  the 
Chinese  reverses  the  attitude. 

Competition  and  a  desire  for  the  ultimate  dol- 


72      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

lar  of  profit  have  forced  business  men  to  rigid 
economy  in  the  details  of  work.  Leaks  that 
would  ruin  the  American  manufacturer  or  the 
Oriental  farmer  creep  into  every  farm  business 
in  this  country.  Neither  the  Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany nor  the  Ford  Automobile  concern  could 
prosper  if  they  wasted  products  as  the  farmers 
of  the  corn  belt  did  when  they  threw  away  fer- 
tility by  burning  corn,-  or  if  they  permitted  the 
losses  that  the  average  farmer  does  in  his  han- 
dling of  barn  manure. 

It  is  well  to  realize  the  different  problems 
confronting  the  men  who  would  plan  his  system 
of  farming  with  the  same  care  that  the  business 
man  would  use.  The  Bureau  of  Farm  Man- 
agement, before  deciding  on  the  desirability  of 
an  enterprise,  takes  into  consideration  the  fol- 
lowing factors : 

(1)  Profitableness  as  determined  by  general 

and  local  experience. 

(2)  The  extent  and  distribution  of  the  enter- 

prises.   This  has  much  to  do  with  the 
stability  of  the  supply  and  demand. 

(3)  Location  with  reference  to  markets. 


FITTING  SCHEME  TO  CONDITIONS      73 

(4)  Conditions  existing  in  the  market  cen- 

ters, especially  combinations  of  dealers 
which  control  prices. 

(5)  Soil  and  climatic  conditions. 

(6)  Cost  of  equipment  required. 

(7)  Amount  and  character  of  labor  required. 

(8)  Seasonal  distribution  of  labor. 

(9)  Extent  and  possible  market  for  the  prod- 

uct and  the  probable  effect  of  a  con- 
siderable increase  in  the  supply  on 
market  prices. 

(10)  Effect  of  the  enterprise  on  the  fertility 

of  the  soil. 
In  studying  any  particular  crop  the  Bureau 
seeks  to  know: 

(1)  Kind  and  number  of  operations  required 

by  the  crop. 

(2)  Number  of  men,  horses,  and  machines 

that  may  or  must  be  used  for  them. 

(3)  Dates  between  which  these   operations 

may  or  must  be  performed. 

(4)  Amount  of  work  each  man,  horse,  or  ma- 

chine can  do  in  a  day. 


74      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

(5)  Proportion  of  days  which  will  be  lost  by 
weather,  condition  of  soil,  etc. 

With  such  data  at  hand  it  is  possible  to  work 
out  a  system  of  cropping  which  will  provide  the 
maximum  amount  of  profitable  work  for  men, 
horses,  tools,  and  land  for  the  year. 

There  is  work  for  the  mathematician  in  figur- 
ing out  the  additional  cost  of  a  field  forty  rods 
distant  from  the  barn  if  the  crop  is  of  such  a 
nature  as  to  demand  four  trips  between  the  field 
and  barn  for  a  man  and  team  each  year.  To  de- 
termine how  much  more  expensive  the  distance 
becomes  if  the  exigencies  of  the  crop  demand 
sixteen  such  trips  is  a  problem  which  may  tell 
why  farmers  keep  certain  crops  near  the  barn. 

Compared  with  the  selling  of  grain,  the 
agronomist  must  consider  that  a  small  propor- 
tion of  the  fertility  leaves  the  place  when  dairy 
products  such  as  butter  and  cheese  are  sold. 

The  economist  can  easily  find  that  an  inex- 
pensive way  to  purchase  fertilizing  material  for 
the  farm  is  to  buy  it  in  the  form  of  feed  stuff. 
Good  cattle  will  live  on  the  purchased  food,  im- 


FITTING  SCHEME  TO  CONDITIONS      75 

prove  the  fertility  of  the  farm,  and  pay  the 
farmer  for  the  privilege  of  doing  it. 

No  wonder  that  Horace  Greeley  said:  "By 
and  by  it  will  be  generally  realized  that  few 
men  live  or  have  lived  who  cannot  find  scope 
and  profitable  employment  for  all  their  intel- 
lect on  a  two-hundred-acre  farm.,, 

We  must  remember  that ' '  the  larger  return  is 
won  by  the  farmer  who  is  qualitatively  more  ef- 
ficient because  he  shows  greater  skill  in  per- 
forming his  work.  He  uses  better  judgment  in 
planning  his  farm  operations,  in  regulating  his 
field  system,  in  selecting  seeds,  in  choosing  tools 
and  machinery  with  which  to  do  the  work,  or 
in  the  breeding  and  feeding  of  live  stock. ' ' 


CHAPTER  VIII 

COORDINATION   OF   ENTERPRISES 

There  are  three  hundred  and  thirteen  work 
days  in  the  year.  The  farmer  who  wishes  to 
succeed  must  so  arrange  his  work  as  to  put  to 
profitable  use  as  many  as  possible  of  these 
hours. 

The  day  laborer  counts  his  time  as  well  spent 
when  he  works  for  and  receives  a  wage  for 
every  day  of  the  year.  If  he  does  not  work  his 
income  ceases. 

But  the  farmer's  income  apparently  suffers 
no  interruption  if  he  happens  to  spend  a  few 
hours  riding  around  the  country  in  his  automo- 
bile or  if  from  some  cause  beyond  his  control 
he  is  compelled  to  stop  work  for  a  time.  He 
thinks  that  his  cows  work  for  him,  or  that  his 
fields  raise  crops  without  demanding  a  full  re- 
turn in  work.    It  is  an  insidious  line  of  reason- 

76 


COOKDINATION  OF  ENTEEPEISES      77 

ing.  Horace  Greeley  recognized  it  when  lie 
said :  i '  The  one  great  error  that  misleads  and 
corrupts  mankind  is  the  presumption  that  some- 
thing may  be  had  for  nothing  .  .  .  the  law  that 
requires  each  to  pay  for  all  he  gets  and  reap 
only  where  he  has  sown  .  .  .  will  not  submit  to 
defiance  or  evasion." 

The  farmer  whose  system  of  farming  gives 
him  profitable  work  for  only  half  of  the  year 
will  receive  pay  for  only  the  time  spent  in  toil. 
Not  alone  is  his  labor  wage  reduced  thereby, 
but  the  capital  invested  in  the  business  is  not  re- 
turning its  full  value,  for  the  wheels  of  the 
farm  machine  are  not  revolving. 

The  machines  in  the  factory  working  with 
three  shifts  of  men  are  never  idle.  The  incom- 
ing shift  stands  behind  the  departing  one  and, 
at  a  signal,  the  men  change  places.  The  ma- 
chines run  steadily  on  and  turn  out  their  special 
products  in  an  unceasing  stream. 

The  average  horse  on  a  Northern  farm  works 
only  three  hours  a  day,  and  the  average  farmer 
probably  works  less  than  two  hundred  days  a 
year.    No  factory  in  the  world  could  survive  un- 


78      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

der  such,  conditions.  The  manufacturer  often 
makes  his  profit  from  a  by-product  and  some- 
times can  better  afford  to  make  up  goods  at 
less  than  cost  rather  than  to  close  his  plant  even 
for  a  few  days. 

It  was  merely  applying  this  principle  that  led 
the  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Farm  Management 
to  say:  "I  believe  that  I  can  prove  that  if  the 
cotton  farmer  had  half  a  dozen  things  on  which 
to  lose  money  lie  would  make  more  profit  than 
he  does." 

Half  pay  for  iull  time  brings  in  as  much 
money  in  the  course  of  the  year  as  full  pay  for 
half  time. 

The  keeping  of  cows  persists  in  the  face  of 
theoretical  demonstration  that  they  are  kept  at 
a  loss.  If  poor  cows  are  kept  and  the  farmer 
has  help  in  the  milking  he  receives  half  pay  for 
full  time,  as  the  dairy  provides  steady  work 
during  the  winter  as  well  as  the  summer.  If 
good  cows  are  kept  and  the  dairyman  does  not 
have  help  in  the  milking  he  is  working  produc- 
tively too  few  hours  and  is  receiving  full  pay 
for  half  time.    The  weakness  in  the  dairy  is  the 


COORDINATION  OF  ENTERPRISES      79 

limiting  factor  of  the  few  cows  which  one  man 
can  milk.  A  farmer  can  raise  the  crops  to  feed 
twice  the  herd  that  he  can  milk  and  the  care 
of  the  additional  creatures,  apart  from  milking, 
is  well  within  his  capacity.  As  it  is,  he  is  kept 
on  half-work  throughout  the  year  because  of 
that  one  factor.  The  development  of  the  milk- 
ing machine  may  revolutionize  the  dairy. 

While  it  is  very  easy  to  figure  out  that  the 
dairyman  does  not  receive  a  full  wage  for  his 
time,  it  is  more  difficult  to  plan  a  system  of 
farming  which  will  supply  him  with  work  that 
will  prove  more  profitable  at  the  end  of  the 
year  than  the  day  in  and  day  out  work  in  the 
dairy. 

Labor  costs  more  than  rent  of  land;  conse- 
quently it  is  more  important  to  utilize  the  full 
time  of  men  and  horses  than  it  is  to  keep  the 
production  of  the  land  on  high  gear.  An  inter- 
esting example  of  the  necessity  for  efficiency  in 
labor  comes  from  the  cotton  and  wheat  fields. 
Each  crop  gives  a  fair  division  of  labor 
throughout  the  season. 

The  cotton  farmer,  who  works  without  hired 


80      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAKMING 

help,  is  kept  busy  from  the  beginning  of  the  sea- 
son until  his  crop  is  harvested.  But  he  is  lim- 
ited in  the  area  of  cotton  which  he  can  grow  to 
that  which  he  and  his  family  can  pick.  A  man 
and  one  mule  can  plow  and  cultivate  this  amount 
of  land.  The  farmer  is  kept  busy  all  day  and 
every  day  but  he  is  walking  behind  one  mule. 
He  is  like  the  dairyman  who  is  not  cultivating 
more  crops  to  produce  more  milk  because  he 
cannot  care  for  the  cows.  Both  mark  time  be- 
cause of  a  single  limiting  factor. 

The  wheat  farmer  in  eastern  Washington 
keeps  busy  from  one  end  of  the  season  to  the 
other.  The  harvesting  machine  has  removed 
the  one-time  limiting  factor  of  his  work.  Now, 
one  man  can  care  for  all  the  land  which  he  can 
plow  during  the  year.  The  Washington  farmer 
extends  this  season  by  raising  wheat  on  but 
half  of  his  land  each  year.  The  balance  of  the 
land  is  prepared  for  next  season's  crop  by  plow- 
ing part  of  it  in  the  spring  and  part  in  the  fall. 
In  this  way  the  one-man  wheat  farm  comprises 
320  acres.  But  this  man  rides  behind  a  team  of 
five  or  six  big  horses,  in  contrast  to  the  one 


COORDINATION  OF  ENTERPRISES      81 

mule  of  his  cotton  rival.  The  net  income  of  the 
mule  farm  is  $263.00,  while  the  team  of  five 
horses  brings  a  net  income  of  $1,563.00. 

When  the  cotton  is  picked  by  a  machine  of 
efficiency  equal  to  the  harvester,  the  cotton  and 
wheat  farmers  will  meet  on  equal  ground. 

A  system  of  cropping  that  makes  admirable 
use  of  the  time  of  man  and  horse  is  the  six-year 
rotation:  corn  two  years,  wheat  two  years  (fall 
sown),  and  timothy  and  clover  two  years.  None 
of  these  crops  competes  with  the  others — that 
is,  requires  attention  at  the  same  time.  The 
corn  is  planted  and  cultivated  before  the  har- 
vest of  the  hay  begins.  The  wheat  is  garnered 
before  the  corn  is  ripe.  Each  follows  on  the 
heels  of  the  others.  This  provides  daily  work 
for  the  horses  from  early  spring  until  the 
ground  is  frozen  up  in  the  fall.  It  obviates  the 
hiring  of  extra  teams  and  neither  men  nor 
horses  are  overworked  at  one  season  and  idle 
at  another. 

The  limiting  factors  are  (1)  the  area  of  corn 
land  that  one  man  can  prepare  for  planting,  (2) 
the  area  of  corn  land  which  one  man  can  culti- 


82      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FABMING 

vate,  (3)  the  area  of  wheat  land  that  one  man 
can  prepare.  (The  timothy  seed  is  sown  with 
the  wheat.)  One  of  the  beauties  of  this  rotation 
is  that  these  areas  are  equal.  One  man  with  a 
good  team  can  attend  to  forty  acres  of  hay, 
forty  acres  of  corn,  and  forty  acres  of  wheat. 

This  system  of  cropping  distributes  the  work 
and  is  a  good  rotation,  providing  a  cultivated 
crop,  a  small  grain  and  a  hay  and  clover  crop. 
Humus,  nitrogen,  and  tilth  are  contributed  to 
the  soil. 

Theoretically  the  use  of  a  four-horse  team 
would  nearly  double  the  production  of  the  farm- 
er using  this  rotation.  For  he  could,  by  driv- 
ing four  horses,  cover  twice  the  ground  in  the 
same  length  of  time.  Practically,  I  should  like 
the  name  and  address  of  any  man  who  is  thus 
cultivating  the  two  hundred  and  forty  acres. 

These  three  crops  do  not  interfere,  the  one 
is  not  produced  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  The 
comparative  returns  yielded  by  the  three  do 
not,  therefore,  enter  into  the  calculation.  If  the 
wheat  could  be  replaced  by  some  other  crop 
which  would  be  as  advantageous  in  the  rotation 


COOEDINATION  OF  ENTERPRISES      83 

as  regards  soil  fertility  and  yet  not  conflict  with 
corn  or  hay  in  labor  while  bringing  in  more 
money,  the  other  crop  should  be  raised.  If  corn 
could  be  correspondingly  replaced,  more  profit 
would  accrue  to  the  farmer.  But  because  corn 
brings  in  larger  returns  than  hay  is  not  a  rea- 
son for  adding  more  corn  land  to  the  rotation. 
The  farmer  is  already  producing  as  much  corn 
as  he  and  his  team  can  care  for,  and  to  add  more 
corn  land  would  add  to  the  labor  cost  on  the 
farm.  To  produce  corn  and  hay  is  not  to  in- 
crease the  labor  cost,  but  simply  to  use  labor 
which  would  otherwise  be  unproductive.  This 
principle  of  coordination,  into  which  enters  di- 
versity, rotation,  and,  to  a  degree,  size  of  busi- 
ness, is  the  vital  one  for  the  farmer. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  OPPORTUNITY  FOR  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

The  best  chance  for  the  individual  is  the  cul- 
tivation of  personal  efficiency. 

We  have  been  studying  the  general  principles 
underlying  success  in  farming.  The  average 
success  is  made  by  following  these  rules,  with 
only  such  changes  as  the  immediate  conditions 
warrant.  The  farmer  who  wishes  to  increase 
his  income  had  best  follow  the  methods  thereby 
suggested  but  add  to  his  returns  by  becoming 
more  proficient  in  each  controlling  factor. 

Of  two  farmers,  side  by  side  with  apparently 
the  same  general  equipment  of  stock  and  ma- 
chinery, one  will  grow  rich  and  the  other  will 
grow  poor.  It  is  the  personal  equation.  The 
factor  that  controls  is  the  man  at  the  head  of  the 
business.  It  was  this  that  the  Chief  of  the  Bu- 
reau of  Farm  Management  meant  when  he  said : 

84 


OPPORTUNITY  FOR  INDIVIDUAL      85 

"The  man  is  75%  of  the  proposition  and  the 
farm  25%. " 

Yet  the  farm  income  is  not  increased  because 
a  successful  man  is  in  charge,  but  because  of 
the  way  he  does  things.  His  live  stock  is  better 
than  the  average,  his  scheme  of  farming  does 
use  to  better  advantage  the  time  of  men  and 
teams,  his  investment  is  larger  than  that  of  his 
unsuccessful  competitors. 

The  broadest  and  best  opportunity  for  the 
farmer  is  that  which  comes  through  this  per- 
sonal efficiency ;  yet  there  are  multitudes  of  spe- 
cial chances  in  every  community.  Usually  these 
are  in  the  nature  of  retail  business,  such  as  sup- 
plying the  local  trade  or  the  individual  con- 
sumer, or  the  production  of  a  superior  quality. 

Readers  of  Country  Life  may  remember  the 
story  of  Mike  Trucker,  who  made  $1,500.00  from 
two  acres  on  the  shore  of  the  Indian  River  in 
Florida,  Mike  let  his  neighbors  ship  their  pro- 
duce to  the  Northern  markets ;  he  looked  after 
the  tourist  trade  right  at  hand.  He  received 
fifty  cents  a  quart  for  his  strawberries  and  fifty 
cents  a  dozen  for  eggs  right  within  reach  of  his 


86      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

own  one-horse  wagon.  He  planned  his  whole 
system  of  farming  so  as  to  supply  the  winter 
trade  within  reach  of  his  own  circuit.  There 
was  neither  freight  nor  commission  to  pay,  nor 
uncertainty  about  markets  at  the  other  end  of 
the  journey,  for  everything  was  ordered  before 
it  was  grown.  Mike  was  very  optimistic  as  to 
the  opportunity  for  anybody  on  the  shore  of  the 
Indian  River.  He  did  not  realize  the  limited 
market,  nor  did  he  appreciate  how  much  the 
personal  equation  entered  into  the  market  which 
he  had  established.  People  had  acquired  the 
habit  of  trading  with  him  because  he  served 
them  faithfully  and  well.  The  "good  will"  of 
Mike 's  clientele  was  worth  much  more  than  his 
acres. 

Out  in  the  State  of  Washington  there  is  a 
man  who  raises  eggs.  His  eggs  are  good,  but 
his  reputation  is  better.  He  has  never  sold  his 
supply  for  less  than  70  cents  a  dozen,  but  that 
is  because  his  trade  would  rather  pay  that  price 
for  goods  of  the  assured  quality  that  come  from 
him  than  buy  elsewhere  at  a  less  price.  He 
probably  thinks  that  there  is  easy  money  in 


OPPOETUNITY  FOR  INDIVIDUAL      87 

raising  eggs.  And  he  is  right,  if  a  man  can  ob- 
tain the  reputation  and  market  which  will  com- 
mand such  prices. 

In  a  dairy  section,  about  one  farm  in  fifty  can 
profitably  be  devoted  to  raising  high-grade 
bulls.  It  is  better  for  the  forty-nine  other  farm- 
ers to  pay  one  of  their  number  to  study  the 
matter  of  breeding  and  become  proficient  in  the 
practice. 

It  is  often  profitable  for  one  farmer  in  a  dairy 
region  to  make  butter.  The  average  farmer 
does  not  care  to  add  to  the  complexity  of  his 
work  by  churning  at  home.  Many  of  them  do 
not  care  to  use  butter  that  is  made  under  condi- 
tions too  frequent  in  creameries.  The  profes- 
sional butter-maker  can  turn  out  a  good  product 
if  he  has  the  supplies  of  good  cream,  but  in 
nearly  every  community  are  a  few  farmers  who 
do  not  keep  their  cream  up  to  the  standard  of 
cleanliness,  and  this  unclean  supply  is  mixed 
with  the  good,  thus  bringing  down  the  quality 
of  the  mass.  Again,  it  often  happens  that  the 
little  village,  set  within  the  midst  of  dairy 
farms,  is  almost  without  milk  for  the  house- 


88      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FABMING 

holder,  for  the  farmers  sell  their  supplies  at 
wholesale. 

Each  of  these  examples  is  of  retail  business ; 
and  it  is  true  in  practice  that  the  average  re- 
tailer, as  soon  as  he  has  accumulated  sufficient 
capital  through  retailing,  prefers  to  embark 
upon  the  larger  business  requiring  a  wholesale 
outlet.  It  is  thus  often  used  as  a  means  to  ac- 
quire capital.  But  it  is  financially  successful  or 
it  could  not  be  used  as  a  stepping-stone. 

A  well-known  tobacco  farmer  in  Connecticut 
has  made  a  reputation  for  the  high  grade  of  his 
product  and  he  has  already  sold  next  year's 
crop  for  $75,000.00  But  he  knows  that  when  the 
buyer  lights  a  bit  of  the  tobacco  leaf,  if  any  ash 
is  left  or  it  does  not  burn  crisply,  the  buyer  will 
not  take  the  wrapper  at  any  price.  He  has 
learned  how  to  produce  this  quality  and  he 
grows  only  that  particular  grade  of  stuff.  His 
opportunity  is  built  on  land  peculiarly  adapted 
to  this  tobacco,  in  the  first  place ;  but  knowledge 
and  determination  are  contributing  factors,  for 
without  these  his  land  would  not  give  him  the 
high-grade  tobacco. 


OPPORTUNITY  FOR  INDIVIDUAL      89 

A  certain  chicken  farmer  in  New  Hampshire 
buys  the  unfinished  fowl  of  his  neighbors,  fat- 
tens them,  and  ships  them  to  market.  He  fig- 
ures his  profit  at  55%  on  the  operation.  He  is 
a  specialist  and  reaps  the  reward  of  knowledge 
properly  applied.  This  same  farmer  sold  his 
fowl  for  24  cents  in  the  local  market  while  he 
was  buying  from  his  neighbors  for  14  cents. 
Probably  the  very  housewives  who  were  selling 
him  unfattened  chickens  were  buying  back  their 
own  fowls  after  they  had  been  fattened  for  a 
fortnight.  Imagine  the  Standard  Oil  Company 
permitting  a  leak  like  this ! 

The  story  of  a  New  England  orchard  in  the 
making  illustrates  several  of  the  points  which 
we  have  discussed.  The  orchard  was  too  large 
for  one  man  and  not  large  enough  for  two.  It 
needed  a  team  of  horses  but  could  not  keep  them 
busy.  It  took  several  years  for  these  facts  to 
reach  the  consciousness  of  the  new  city  owner. 
This  man  had  read  that  "cows  did  not  pay," 
and  so  banished  them  from  his  calculations,  un- 
til two  or  three  winters  of  idleness  forced  the 
matter  upon  his  consideration.    When  be  fig- 


90      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

ured  upon  his  fertilizer  bills,  he  forgot  to  look 
askance  at  cows.  Idle  time  in  the  winter,  and  a 
big  bill  for  chemicals,  began  to  make  a  differ- 
ence in  the  calculations.  He  learned  that  fertil- 
ity can  be  more  cheaply  purchased  in  the  form 
of  feed  than  otherwise,  and  that  half-pay  for 
winter  time  is  much  better  than  no-pay.  He  be- 
gan to  figure  on  using  the  time  of  men  and 
teams.  The  size  of  the  orchard  was  increased 
(for  the  future)  by  the  planting  of  more  trees. 
But  even  this  left  big  loop-holes  in  the  time  ac- 
count. So  he  added  small  fruits,  strawberries, 
blackberries,  raspberries,  currants,  and  goose- 
berries. To  keep  the  horses  at  work  he  plowed 
more  land  and  soon  began  raising  various  crops, 
such  as  potatoes,  beans,  wheat,  corn,  etc.  He 
started  a  nursery,  for  the  sake  of  raising  his 
own  young  trees,  and  to  have  some  for  sale. 

And  just  as  he  diversified  in  his  crops,  so  he 
divided  his  risks  in  the  market.  Other  orchard- 
ists  in  the  State  shipped  by  wholesale  to  the 
glutted  Boston  market,  leaving  a  vacuum  be- 
hind them.  Our  friend  stepped  into  the  breach 
and  kept  many  of  his  apples  at  home.    Why 


OPPORTUNITY  FOR  INDIVIDUAL     91 

ship  to  Boston  when  a  higher  price  could  be  ob- 
tained within  a  few  miles  of  the  orchard  ?  Why- 
ship  second  quality  fruit  to  a  market  good  only 
for  first  grade,  and  why  sell  fancy  apples  to  a 
trade  that  wanted  only  sound  number  twos? 
Why  sell  his  cream  to  a  creamery  which  dumped 
it  in  with  all  the  rest  and  paid  him  only  the 
price  for  inferior  stuff?  Why  present  the 
creamery  with  the  17%  overrun  while  he  and 
his  man  sat  around  the  stove? 

That  city  dreamer  knew  more  about  finding 
markets  than  he  did  about  swinging  a  scythe. 
Finally  it  got  pounded  into  his  head  that  the 
way  to  make  money  was  to  do  the  job  that  he 
knew  how  to  do  better  than  the  other  fellow,  and 
leave  to  the  other  fellow  that  man's  specialty. 

To-day  he  is  supplying  the  local  trade  with 
barreled  apples,  the  city  consumer  trade  with 
boxed  fruit,  and  the  wholesale  firm  with  car- 
lots.  His  pickers  begin  with  the  strawberry 
crop,  follow  on  to  the  raspberries,  currants, 
blackberries,  and  gooseberries.  His  trade  begins 
to  look  for  the  arrival  of  his  strawberries,  and 
thereafter  takes  the  following  crops  as  a  mat- 


92      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

ter  of  course.  The  berries  do  not  supply  full 
loads,  so  cases  of  eggs  are  used  to  fill  in  the 
chinks.  Chickens  that  may  not  pay  as  a  single 
crop,  pay  with  him,  because  they  fit  into  the 
scheme  of  time  and  delivery  loads.  With  the 
need  for  speed  and  distance  in  delivering,  the 
horses  are  kept  on  the  farm  and  a  light  truck 
eats  up  the  miles  and  enlarges  the  circle  of  ter- 
ritory over  which  regular  deliveries  are  made. 

He  found  local  firms  buying  potatoes  from 
other  States  and  paying  the  freight  to  have 
them  shipped  in.  And  he  stepped  in  to  help 
supply  the  local  needs.  Freight  and  commis- 
sion charges  acted  as  a  tariff  wall  to  protect  his 
infant  industry. 

Mike  Trucker  did  the  same  thing  in  Florida. 
Reginald  Cityman  is  doing  it  in  New  England. 
Thousands  of  other  men  are  doing  it  all  over 
the  land.  The  opportunity  for  the  individual 
is  to  fit  his  scheme  of  farming  to  the  condi- 
tions in  which  he  finds  himself. 


CHAPTER  X 

LIVE  STOCK  ON  THE  FARM 

Animals  are  farm  machines.  They  convert 
the  raw  materials  of  the  place  into  manufac- 
tured products.  Hay,  straw,  grain  and  other 
feeds  are  converted  and  condensed  into  beef, 
mutton,  milk,  butter,  eggs,  etc.  Transportation 
charges  are  cut  and  distant  markets  thereby 
made  available. 

The  manufacturer  must  watch  the  efficiency 
of  his  machinery  and  when  a  given  type  proves 
a  losing  proposition  it  must  go  to  the  scrap- 
heap  and  be  replaced  by  a  better  type.  Most 
farms  have  animals  that  belong  in  the  scrap- 
heap,  and  few  dairy  herds  are  without  cows  that 
are  kept  at  a  loss. 

There  are  certain  risks  in  live-stock  farming. 
Disease  may  destroy  the  capital  invested  in  ani- 
mals ;  tuberculosis  may  wipe  out  a  dairy ;  chol- 

93 


94      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FABMING 

era  may  kill  off  a  drove  of  hogs ;  liver-rot  may 
devastate  a  flock  of  sheep.  Scarcity  of  food 
may  put  the  price  of  hay  and  grain  at  a  figure 
that  spells  loss;  for  live  stock  cannot  be  held 
indefinitely  but  must  be  sold  as  soon  as  they 
are  finished  or  they  will  eat  their  heads  off. 

But  live  stock  is  needed  on  the  business  farm 
to  provide  continuous  work  for  the  men,  to  con- 
vert low-grade  food-stuffs  into  high-grade,  and 
to  keep  up  the  fertility  of  the  land  in  as  eco- 
nomical a  manner  as  possible. 

Animals  require  more  care  in  winter  than  in 
summer.  The  winter  care  comes  at  a  time  when 
the  farmer  would  not  otherwise  be  employed 
and  therefore  may  be  considered  as  cheap  la- 
bor. Much  of  the  summer  "chore"  time  comes 
before  and  after  regular  hours  of  work  in  cul- 
tivating and  harvesting  the  crops  and  so  sum- 
mer care  of  the  dairy  does  not  come  into  direct 
competition  with  labor  done  within  the  ordinary 
hours  of  the  day. 

Cows  will  eat  hay  that  would  not  command 
a  market  price  and  convert  it  into  milk  and 
cream ;  sheep  will  clean  up  what  the  cows  leave ; 


LIVE  STOCK  ON  THE  FAEM        95 

goats  will  live  on  brush;  while  animals  of  all 
sorts  will  live  on  pasture  land  that  could  not 
profitably  be  used  in  any  other  way.  Pigs  and 
chickens,  if  permitted  to  run  at  large,  will 
gather  much  of  their  living  and  act  as  scaven- 
gers in  doing  it.  Grasshoppers,  bugs,  windfall 
fruit,  weeds,  and  deleterious  seeds  will  be  trans- 
formed into  eggs,  broilers,  and  pork.  Skim-milk 
will  be  converted  by  the  same  means  into  sala- 
ble products. 

The  hens  that  are  fed  on  these  weeds,  wastes, 
and  table  scraps  are  looked  after  by  the  women 
and  children  of  the  farm.  Their  food  costs  lit- 
tle or  nothing  and  the  care  is  by  unpaid  labor. 
Eggs  raised  under  such  a  schedule  of  small  cost 
are  sold  at  a  low  price ;  and  when  one  considers 
that  the  main  supply  of  eggs  of  the  country 
comes  from  these  small  farm  flocks  the  difficulty 
of  the  competition  meeting  the  specialized  egg 
farm  is  apparent.  The  specialist  must  meet  it 
by  improved  breeds,  systems  of  forcing  egg- 
laying,  and  higher-grade  products.  Fortunate- 
ly for  him,  the  owners  of  a  few  hens  cannot  af- 


96      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

ford  to  ship  eggs  often  enough  to  meet  the  re- 
quirements of  the  "  extra  fancy' '  grades. 

It  is  evident  that  live  stock,  under  such  con- 
ditions, can  be  produced  at  a  small  margin  of 
profit;  and  it  is  nearly  as  difficult  for  the  spe- 
cialist in  beef,  pork,  or  dairy  products  to  com- 
pete with  the  main  supply  of  the  country  as  it 
would  be  for  the  manufacturer  to*  attempt  to 
provide  gasoline  without  taking  into  account  the 
products  that  come  off  in  the  same  distillation. 
The  farmer  who  is  figuring  on  the  cost  of  fer- 
tilizing his  land  can  study  with  profit  the  fol- 
lowing values,  worked  on  an  ante-bellum  scale 
of  prices  for  chemicals. 

The  value  of  the  fertilizing  constituents  of 
the  manure  made  in  a  year  per  thousand  pounds 
of  live  weight,  if  purchased,  would  be  as  fol- 
lows: 

Cow,       $31.20 

Sheep,    $36.84 

Pig,        $64.48 

Fowls,    $54.52 

If  the  farmer  is  wondering  whether  it  is  bet- 
ter to  sell  his  corn  as  grain,  or  convert  it  into 


LIVE  STOCK  ON  THE  FAEM        97 

pork,  the  matter  of  $64.48  for  each  half -ton  of 
pork  (the  equivalent  of  6,000  pounds  of  corn)  is 
a  decided  factor. 

When  he  sells  a  ton  of  timothy  hay  he  sells 
$6.00  worth  of  manure,  but  if  he  sells  a  ton  of 
pigs  he  takes  away  only  $8.17  worth  of  fertility. 
Thus,  if  he  sells  the  hay  for  $15.00,  he  receives 
$9.00  for  his  crop  and  $6.00  for  his  capital,  as 
represented  in  farm  fertility.  If  he  obtains  6 
cents  for  his  pigs,  there  is  only  $8.00  to  be  sub- 
tracted from  the  $120.00  which  comes  to  him. 

The  cost  in  farm  fertility  to  be  charged  up 
against  the  capital  account  on  a  160-acre  farm 
runs  as  follows  for  three  systems  of  farming : 

Nitrogen  Phosphoric 

In  Lbs.  Acid.      Potash. 

All-grain  farm  . .     5,600  2,500        4,200 

Dairy  farm .. .       800  175             85 

Livestock  900  150             60 

G.  F.  Warren  says:  " There  is  no  merit  or 
demerit  in  selling  any  particular  crop.  If  one 
sells  everything  that  grows,  including  the  straw 


98      THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

and  hay,  and  gives  no  attention  to  the  soil,  he  is 
sure  to  get  into  trouble  sooner  or  later.  But 
there  are  many  ways  of  keeping  up  fertility. 
The  question  is  which  way  pays  best. p  p 

In  our  study  of  the  business  of  farming  this 
is  the  one  point  for  us  to  consider — ' '  which  way 
pays  best."  Not  alone  in  the  immediate  pres- 
ent, but  taking  account  of  the  future  and  care- 
fully balancing  the  demands  of  to-day  and  to- 
morrow. 

As  a  rule  it  may  be  stated  that  the  sale  of 
crops  is  more  directly  profitable  than  the  using 
of  them  for  feed  on  the  place.  In  part  this  is 
because  one  sells  the  higher-grade  stuff  and  in 
part  because  one  draws  on  the  bank  account  in 
farm  f ertilty  when  selling  crops  instead  of  dis- 
posing of  animal  products. 

If  the  farmer  raises  only  live  stock,  his  ani- 
mals are  competing  with  those  fed  only  on  low- 
grade  feeds,  while  his  consume  both  grades.  If 
he  raises  only  crops,  he  is  throwing  away  the 
low-grade  produce,  which  might  be  producing 
low-cost  live  stock.  A  proper  balancing  of  live 
stock  and  crops  is  the  proper  farm  management. 


LIVE  STOCK  ON  THE  FARM        99 

The  specialist  makes  money,  but  he  would  make 
more  if  he  could  combine  successfully  the  two 
types  of  farming. 

The  deduction  from  the  foregoing  statements 
is  quite  plain  that,  under  average  conditions, 
enough  live  stock  should  be  kept  to  utilize  the 
low-grade  products  of  the  farm.  By  transform- 
ing these  into  fertility  for  the  fields,  we  are 
raising  the  grade  of  our  products.  Moreover,  in 
many  cases,  the  cost  of  harvesting  may  be  wiped 
out  by  turning  the  animals  into  the  fields  to  har- 
vest their  own  food.  If  the  cost  of  harvesting  a 
bushel  of  corn  is  ten  cents,  and  a  pig  turned  into 
the  corn-field  gathers  the  ear  for  himself,  he 
should  be  credited  with  the  value  of  the  labor 
which  he  thus  performs,  in  casting  up  the  ac- 
counts of  the  farm. 

Investigation  has  shown  that  when  produc- 
tion of  crops  has  reached  about  150%  of  the 
average  yield  the  curve  of  profit  begins  to  go 
down.  No  top  has  been  found  to  animal  pro- 
duction. The  average  hen  lays,  perhaps,  100 
eggs  per  year.  The  200-egg  hen  does  not  cost 
twice  as  much  in  feed  and  care  as  her  ordinary 


100    THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

sister,  and  she  yields  a  correspondingly  greater 
profit.  The  300-egg  hen  will  not  cost  50%  more 
to  keep  than  the  producer  of  200  eggs.  The  cow 
that  fills  the  pail  with  rich  milk  costs  more  to 
feed  than  the  poor  type  which  gives  only  half 
as  much,  but  the  cost  is  not  in  proportion  to  the 
additional  yield.  The  calf  from  the  poor  cow 
takes  nearly  as  much  food  to  grow  as  the  young- 
ster raised  by  the  good  cow,  but  it  is  sold  for 
$5.00  as  against  a  price  in  proportion  to  its 
mother's  worth  on  the  part  of  the  pedigreed 
calf. 

The  dairy  farm  which  is  large  enough  so  that 
the  manager  can  take  the  time  to  properly  test 
the  product  of  each  cow  has  an  advantage  over 
the  small  farm  where  a  rush  of  work  prevents 
this  keeping  of  records.  No  man  on  earth  can 
tell  accurately  the  amount  or  quality  of  the 
yield  of  any  cow  by  simple  inspection.  Every 
dairyman  knows  which  are  his  best  cows,  but  he 
often  knows  wrong,  unless  the  milk  is  weighed 
every  day  and  the  Babcock  tester  used  for  the 
butter-fat  content.  The  least  prepossessing 
cow  in  my  own  herd  gives  a  7.40%  butter-fat 


LIVE  STOCK  ON  THE  FARM       101 

test.  In  the  rush  of  summer  work  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  take  the  time  to  test  the  cows  as  often  as 
it  should  be  done,  and  we  compromise  by  an 
occasional  test,  together  with  a  daily  weighing 
of  the  milk.  The  specialist  will  arrange  his  time 
so  as  to  make  the  opportunity. 

The  farmer  who  raises  pure-bred  stock  has  a 
different  proposition  from  the  man  who  keeps 
scrub  cattle.  It  has  been  carefully  figured  out 
that  a  $40.00  cow  depreciates  4%  each  year, 
while  the  $200.00  cow  loses  value  at  the  rate  of 
12%.  This,  plus  6%  interest  on  the  cost,  makes 
the  $40.00  cow  worth  $36.00  at  the  end  of  the 
year,  while  the  $200.00  cow  has  come  down  to 
$164.00.  To  compensate  for  her  increased  cost, 
the  higher-grade  cow  must  make  a  net  return  of 
more  than  $32.00  over  that  of  her  $40.00  com- 
petitor. 

The  man  with  small  capital  can  best  begin 
with  low-cost  cows  and  improve  his  herd  by 
means  of  a  good  sire.  Incidentally  it  may  be 
remarked  that  he  can  improve  the  offspring 
from  low-priced  registered  stock  as  rapidly  as 


102    THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

he  can  from  grades,  and  in  the  end  he  has  good- 
producing  pure-breds,  instead  of  simple  good- 
producers.  The  additional  value  has  come  with- 
out additional  cost. 


CHAPTER  XI 


THE  FAEM  AS  A  HOME 


Good  farming  is  a  means  to  an  end.  If  suc- 
cess is  sought  simply  to  gratify  personal  ambi- 
tion, to  supply  a  love  of  ostentation,  or  to  give 
luxurious  ease,  the  fruit  of  victory  will  turn  to 
ashes. 

Good  farming  should  mean  a  good  home,  a 
lasting  home,  founded  upon  a  rock,  not  resting 
upon  the  shifting  sand.  Agriculture  is  a  first 
principle;  on  it  rests  the  life  and  happiness  of 
mankind ;  it  is  the  greatest  and  most  important 
of  extractive  industries,  and  upon  these  indus- 
tries depend  every  method  of  getting  a  living. 
The  manufacturer  would  have  nothing  to  manu- 
facture if  farmers,  miners,  lumberman,  and  fish- 
ermen ceased  to  supply  him  with  raw  materials. 
The  merchant  would  have  nothing  to  sell  if  the 
manufacturer  made  nothing  for  him;  and  the 

103 


104    THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FARMING 

transportation  companies  would  be  idle  if  there 
was  nothing  to  ship.  Strength  comes  from  the 
environment ;  and  a  successful  farmer  is  strong 
and  capable :  his  strength  is  refreshed  because 
he  is  dealing  with  the  elemental  facts  of  life. 

A  good  home  means  a  good  family;  and  the 
highest  ambition  which  any  man  can  hold  is  to 
be  the  head  of  a  family,  strong  in  mind  and  b#iy 
and  righteous  in  deeds.  To  provide  an  estate 
that  will  support  such  a  family  and  develop  in 
them  these  qualities  is  a  goal  to  appeal  to  the 
best  of  us.  The  writers  who  urge  us  to  go  to 
the  farm  because  of  the  beauty  of  the  country  or 
the  peace  of  the  life  on  the  land  miss  the  factor 
that  makes  the  farmer  worth  while.  It  is  the 
discipline  of  the  farm,  the  insistence  of  its  du- 
ties, the  certainties  of  its  penalties,  and  the 
great  big  fact  that  you  are  working  with  nature 
in  the  things  that  make  the  world  go,  that  make 
the  farmer  a  broad,  self-reliant,  forceful  indi- 
vidual. 

Work  is  happiness  and  idleness  akin  to  mis- 
ery. There  are  more  children  who  need  to  be 
set  to  work  than  there  are  who  need  to  be 


THE  FARM  AS  A  HOME  105 

protected  by  child  labor  laws.  The  city  child 
grows  up  in  idleness.  Out  of  school  hours  there 
is  nothing  for  him  to  do  except  to  spend  the 
hours  in  play.  The  child  on  the  farm,  as  soon 
as  he  can  walk,  is  given  some  light,  simple  task 
to  perform.  Perhaps  it  is  the  wood  box  that  he 
fills  for  his  mother,  or  the  potatoes  that  the  girl 
pares  for  dinner.  As  they  grow  older  the  boy 
can  feed  the  calf  and  the  girl  the  chickens.  Both 
chores  are  necessary  and  insistent.  Because  the 
boy  wishes  to  play  is  no  reason  why  the  calf  can 
go  hungry.  He  learns  early  in  the  game  that 
life  is  real  and  earnest.  And  when  he  goes  to 
the  city  the  urban-raised  youth  has  small  chance 
against  him  in  the  battle  of  life. 

Enthusiasm  is  the  breath  of  life,  and  a  com- 
mon enthusiasm  the  strength  of  a  nation.  Bet- 
ter war,  with  its  united  patriotism,  than  the 
crumbling  decay  of  individual,  egotistical  lux- 
uriousness  of  living. 

On  a  farm  the  family  work  together.  In  the 
city  it  makes  little  difference  to  the  rest  of  the 
family  whether  the  father  is  a  broker,  a  butcher, 
or  a  candlestick  maker.    His  place  in  the  econ- 


106    THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FABMING 

omy  of  the  household  is  to  provide  the  money 
to  buy  the  things  needed  by  it.  There  is  no  fur- 
ther community  of  interest ;  matters  pertaining 
to  business  policy  are  not  discussed,  and  the 
children  do  not  know  whether  stocks  are  boom- 
ing, veal  is  down,  or  the  market  for  the  silver- 
smith at  low  ebb.  The  city  dweller  is  amused 
because  the  countryman  talks  crops  and  weather 
signs,  and  he  smiles  in  a  superior  sort  of  fash- 
ion, as  if  these  subjects  were  inconsequential. 
Wall  Street  quotations  are  made  by  crops  and 
weather.  The  broker  is  dealing  with  the  froth 
of  the  game,  while  the  farmer  is  on  the  ground 
floor  making  the  cake  with  which  the  former 
plays.  The  philosopher  who  considers  that  the 
greatest  duty  of  man  is  to  subdue  the  earth  and 
to  make  it  a  better  place  on  which  to  live  is  likely 
to  give  the  farmer  a  pass  to  heaven. 

The  boy  on  the  farm  has  the  inestimable  ad- 
vantage of  working  side  by  side  with  his  father. 
From  his  early  years  he  has  been  accustomed 
to  regular  work — not  a  task  evidently  made  for 
him  to  mark  time  over,  but  one  which  is  part  of 
the  work  of  the  place,  one  that  contributes  to 


THE  FARM  AS  A  HOME  107 

the  support  of  the  family,  and  on  the  well-doing 
of  which  rests  in  some  measure  the  success  of 
the  farm.  There  is  thus  developed  in  the  boy 
a  feeling  of  responsibility  and  self-reliance  that 
will  equip  him  for  his  future  life  as  armor 
equipped  the  knight  of  old.  He  is  early  taken 
into  the  family  discussions  of  ways  and  means. 
Not  alone  are  the  matters  of  spending  money 
brought  before  the  family  council,  but  also  those 
concerned  with  making  it,  the  selling  to  the  best 
advantage.  The  boy  learns  the  value  of  money 
and  the  ways  in  which  it  can  be  made.  He  does 
not  simply  draw  an  allowance  and  concern  him- 
self only  with  making  the  amount  on  hand  last 
over  until  next  pay  day. 

The  association  with  life,  in  the  growing  crops 
and  the  breeding  of  live  stock,  gets  the  boy  in 
touch  with  the  revolving  wheels  of  this  old  earth 
of  ours  and  broadens  his  foundation  until  he  is 
not  like  a  reed  in  the  wind,  bending  before  every 
blast.  He  understands  the  comparative  impor- 
tance of  things  and  is  not  so  likely  to  be  carried 
away  by  false  idols. 

The  farm  family  is  more  stable  than  that  of 


108    THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

the  city.  The  work  on  the  farm  is  not  subject 
to  such  sudden  ups  and  downs  as  is  that  in  the 
city.  A  farmer  learns  patience  and  faith,  for  he 
does  little  that  returns  to  him  "  to-morrow. ' ' 
His  fields  are  improved  by  rotations  that  need 
five  years  to  cover  the  first  round  and  two  cir- 
cuits to  show  results ;  his  stock  is  improved  by 
the  slow  process  of  replacement,  daughters  and 
daughters'  daughters,  unto  the  fifth  and  sixth 
generation,  in  his  dairy.  The  city  man  puts  his 
accumulation  in  the  bank  in  the  form  of  money 
or  bonds,  and  sometimes  in  additional  plant 
which  usually  is  readily  salable ;  but  the  farmer 
stows  away  much  of  his  growing  capital  in  the 
added  fertility  of  the  farm,  the  better  live  stock, 
and  the  more  successful  farm  management. 

Financial  panics  have  less  effect  upon  farm- 
ers than  upon  any  other  class  of  business  men. 
Food  is  always  a  necessity;  wars  may  devastate 
or  panics  bankrupt  the  nation,  but  the  people 
must  continue  to  eat.  Markets  may  be  cur- 
tailed and  the  demand  for  quality  lowered,  but 
food  will  always  be  needed.  The  farmer  will 
ever  have  a  sale  for  his  produce. 


THE  FARM  AS  A  HOME  109 

The  conditions  of  family  life  on  the  farm 
make  for  stability.  In  the  city  the  unmarried 
man  or  woman  is  under  no  disadvantage  in  a 
business  sense  because  unmarried.  But  on  the 
farm  the  household  works  together  and  the  unit 
in  the  business  is  neither  the  man  nor  the 
woman,  but  the  whole  family.  The  farmer  must 
have  a  wife,  and  the  woman  cannot  live  alone. 
This  community  of  interest,  this  need  for  each 
other,  is  the  surest  bond  to  hold  the  family  to- 
gether. It  makes  for  earlier  marriage  and  it 
makes  for  more  care  in  the  selection  of  part- 
ners. In  the  city,  the  man  may  wish  simply  a 
pretty  face  at  the  other  end  of  the  table,  or  a 
showy  partner  to  exhibit  at  the  opera  or  the 
exclusive  ball,  but  in  the  country  the  man  must 
have  a  worthy  mate.  The  mother  of  his  chil- 
dren must  be  of  the  best  available  type. 

"No  pure  form  of  social  or  domestic  life,  no 
high  type  of  morality,  has  ever  been  developed 
among  any  people  except  where  it  was  organ- 
ized around  some  kind  of  productive  work.  The 
ideal  of  production  for  a  common  family  pur- 
pose ...  of  building  a  family  and  perpetuat- 


110    THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

ing  a  prosperous,  productive  family  estate  in- 
stead of  subtracting  from  the  dignity  of  family 
life,  is  really  one  of  the  greatest  factors  in  add- 
ing dignity  to  it." 

Farmers,  as  a  class,  are  independent  because 
they  are  so  largely  self-employed.  Agriculture 
is,  and  always  will  be,  largely  made  up  of  small 
units.  For  the  high-spirited,  independent  man 
this  will  always  be  a  controlling  condition. 
Farming  never  will  pay  speculative  returns,  and 
the  man.  who  prefers  to  play  with  money  had 
best  keep  to  the  city.  The  weak  and  very  strong 
had  best  go  to  the  city,  for  the  farm  is  a  place 
for  individual  effort.  The  workman  must  over- 
see himself,  must  supply  his  own  initiative,  and 
must  stick  to  his  job  until  it  is  finished.  The 
man  who  finds  it  a  trouble  to  decide  what  to  do 
next  will  accomplish  more  and  be  better  paid  for 
it  if  he  works  under  the  eye  of  a  foreman.  The 
man  of  great  executive  ability  will  find  his  place 
in  directing  the  business  which  can  employ  a 
large  number  of  men.  The  farmer  rarely  can 
find  employment  for  as  many  as  half  a  dozen 
men.    He  must  rely  largely  on  his  own  efforts ; 


THE  FARM  AS  A  HOME  111 

he  must  be  self-reliant,  adaptable,  a  naturalist, 
a  business  man,  an  expert  on  feeding  and  breed- 
ing, an  agriculturalist,  and  a  man  always  ready 
to  change  his  policy  to  suit  changing  conditions. 

The  farmer  is  a  constructive  worker.  His 
livelihood  comes  from  making  the  land  produce ; 
he  adds  to  the  wealth  of  the  world.  His  moral 
fiber  is  thereby  strengthened.  Too  often  the 
city  man  makes  his  living  out  of  other  people. 
Oratory,  a  well-groomed  appearance,  and  a  con- 
vincing manner  are  his  stock  in  trade  and  by 
them  he  induces  others  to  part  with  their  dol- 
lars. "Instead  of  laboring  to  make  two  blades 
of  grass  grow  where  one  had  grown  before, 
their  business  is  to  make  two  dollars  emerge 
from  other  people's  pockets  where  one  had 
emerged  before."  A  destructive  business  is 
necessarily  weakening  to  moral  stamina,  for 
man  is  subject  to  his  environment. 

These  moral  qualities  are  the  fundamentals 
of  civilization.  Intellectual  achievements  can 
be  freely  borrowed,  agricultural  machinery  may 
be  cheaply  purchased,  and  social  efficiency  can 
be  quickly  developed  by  an  acute  monarchical 


112    THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FABMING 

government.  Morality  is  of  a  slower  growth, 
and  the  nation  which  becomes  efficient  at  the  ex- 
pense of  morality  is  in  danger  of  falling  into  the 
abyss.  From  the  days  of  mythology  the  touch 
of  the  soil  has  been  recognized  as  the  vital  fac- 
tor in  the  advancement  of  the  world. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


SELECTED  LIST  OF  BOOKS  ON  FARM  MANAGE- 
MENT 

Boss,  Andrew — Farm  management:  Chicago,  N.  Y.  Lyons 

&   Carnahan,   1914.     $0.90. 
Hunt,  T.  F. — How  to  choose  a  farm:  N.  Y.    Macmillan 

Co.     1906.    $1.75. 
Hunt,  T.  F. — The  young  farmer;  some  things  he  should 

know :  N.  Y.   Orange  Judd  Co.    1912.    $1.50. 
Warren,  G.  F. — Farm  management:     N.  Y.     Macmillan 

Co.    1913.    $1.75. 

STATE  AND  STATION  PUBLICATIONS  RELATING 
TO  FARM  MANAGEMENT 

Anderson,  A.  C.  &  Riddell,  F.  T. — Studies  in  the  cost  of 

market  milk  production:     Michigan  Agr.   Exp.   Sta. 

Bui.  172.    1917. 
App,  Frank — Farm  profits  and  factors  influencing  farm 

profits   on   370    potato   farms   in   Monmouth   County, 

New  Jersey:     New  Jersey  Agr.  Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  294. 

Apr.,  1916. 
Boss,  Andrew,  Peck,  F.  W.,  and  Cooper,  T.  P. — Labor 

requirements  of  livestock:     Minnesota  Agr.  Exp.  Sta. 

Bui.  161.    Aug.,  1916. 

115 


116    THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

Burritt,  M.  C. — The  income  of  178  New  York  farms: 
New  York  Cornell  Agr.  Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  271.  Dec, 
1909. 

Cates,  J.  S. — Farm  management :  its  applications  to  south- 
ern New  England  conditions:  Massachusetts  State 
Bd.  Agr.  Ann.  Rpt.  1915,  pt.  2,  p.  58-67.    1916. 

Cooper,  T.  P.,  Peck,  F.  W.,  and  Boss,  Andrew — Labor 
requirements  of  crop  production:  Minn.  Agr.  Exp. 
Sta.  Bui.  157.    March,  1916. 

Filley,  H.  C. — Farm  management  studies  in  eastern  Ne- 
braska: Nebraska  Agr.  Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  157.  Oct., 
1916. 

Goddard,  L.  H. — Labor  cost  of  producing  corn  in  Ohio: 
Ohio  Agr.  Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  266.     Dec,  1913. 

Johnson,  0.  M.,  and  Dadisman,  A.  J. — An  agricultural 
survey  of  Brooke  County:  West  Virginia  Agr.  Exp. 
Sta.  Bui.  153.    1915. 

Johnson,  0.  R. — The  distribution  of  farm  labor :  Missouri 
Agr.  Exp.  Sta.  Research  Bui.  6,  p.  53-88,  fig.  5.  Feb., 
1913. 

Ladd,  C.  E. — Cost  accounts  on  some  New  York  farms:  N. 
Y.  Cornell  Agr.  Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  377.    June,  1916. 

Peck,  F.  W. — Cost  of  producing  Minnesota  farm  crops, 
1908-1912:  Minnesota  Agr.  Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  145.  Dec, 
1914. 

Thompson,  A.  L. — Cost  of  producing  milk  on  174  farms 
in  Delaware  County,  New  York:  N.  Y.  Cornell  Agr. 
Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  364.     Oct.,  1915. 

Warren,  G.  F.,  and  others — An  agricultural  survey:  Town- 
ships of  Ithaca,  Danby  and  Lansing,  Thompkins  Coun- 
ty, New  York:  N.  Y.  Cornell  Agr.  Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  295. 
March,  1911. 

Warren,  G.  F. — Agricultural  surveys — N.  Y.  Cornell  Agr. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  117 

Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  344.  Apr.,  1914.  (Pub.  also  as  Presi- 
dent's address,  in  Proc.  Amer.  Farm  Management 
Assoc,  1913,  p.  9-26.) 

Warren,  G.  F. — Cost  accounting  on  farms:  New  York 
Dept.  Agr.  Bui.  35,  p.  921-926,  1912. 

Warren,  G.  F. — Crop  yields  and  prices,  and  our  future 
food  supply:  N.  Y.  Cornell  Agr.  Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  341. 
Feb.,  1914. 

Warren,  G.  F.,  and  Livermore,  K.  C. — Notes  from  the  ag- 
ricultural survey  of  Tompkins  County:  N.  Y.  Cor- 
nell Agr.  Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  302.    June,  1911. 

Warren,  G.  F. — Some  important  factors  for  success  in 
general  and  dairy  farming:  N.  Y.  Cornell  Agr.  Exp. 
Sta.  Bui.  349.    July,  1914. 

Warren,  G.  F. — Some  principles  of  farm  management :  In 
New  Jersey  State  Bd.  Agr.  Rpt.,  39th,  p.  99-106,  1911. 


PUBLICATIONS  OF  THE  U.  S.  DEPT.  OF  AGRICUL- 
TURE RELATING  TO  FARM  MANAGEMENT 

Arnold,  J.  H. — Crew  work,  costs,  and  returns  in  commer- 
cial orcharding  in  West  Virginia :    Dept.  Bui.  29,  1913. 

Arnold,  J.  H. — How  a  city  family  managed  a  farm :  Far- 
mers' Bui.  432.    1911. 

Ball,  J.  S. — Waste  land  and  wasted  land  on  farms:  Far- 
mers' Bui.  745.     1916. 

Bennett,  C.  M.,  and  Cooper,  M.  0. — The  cost  of  raising 
a  dairy  cow:     Dept.  Bui.  49.     1914. 

BuRRiTT,  M.  C. — A  successful  New  York  farm:  Farmers' 
Bui.  454.    1911. 

Cates,  H.  R. — Farm  practice  in  the  cultivation  of  corn: 
Dept.  Bui.  330.    1916. 


118    THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FABMING 

Cotton,  J.  S.,  and  Ward,  W.  F. — Economical  cattle  feed- 
ing in  the  corn  belt:  Farmers'  Bui.  588.    1914. 

Cotton,  J.  S.,  and  others. — Meat  situation  in  the  United 
States.  Pt.  III.  Methods  and  cost  of  growing  beef 
cattle  in  the  corn  belt  states:  Dept.  Report  111. 

Dodge,  L.  G. — Cropping  systems  for  New  England  dairy- 
farms:    Farmers'  Bui.  337.    1908. 

Dodge,  L.  G. — Farm  management  in  northern  potato-grow- 
ing sections:     Farmers'  Bui.  365.     1909. 

Drake,  J.  A. — A  corn-belt  farming  system  which  saves 
harvest  labor  by  hogging  down  crops:  Farmers'  Bui. 
814.    1914. 

Funk,  W.  C. — Value  to  farm  families  of  food,  fuel,  and 
use  of  house :    Dept.  Bui.  410.    1916. 

Funk,  W.  C. — What  the  farm  contributes  directly  to  the 
farmer's  living:    Farmers'  Bui.  635.    1914. 

Goldenweiser,  E.  A. — The  farmer's  income:  Farmers' 
Bui.  746.    1916. 

Hays,  W.  M.  and  Parker,  E.  C. — The  cost  of  producing 
farm  products:  Bureau  of  Statistics  Bui.  48.  1906. 
(Pub.  also  as  Minnesota  Agr.  Exp.  Sta.  Bui.  97.) 

Humphrey,  H.  N. — Cost  of  fencing  farms  in  the  North 
Central  states:    Dept.  Bui.  321.    1916. 

Humphrey,  H.  N. — Labor  requirements  of  dairy  farms  as 
influenced  by  milking  machines:  Dept.  Bui.  423. 
1916. 

Ladd,  C.  E. — A  system  of  farm  cost  accounting :  Farmers' 
Bui.  572.     1914. 

McDowell,  J.  C. — Influence  of  age  on  the  value  of  dairy 
cows  and  farm  work  horses :    Dept.  Bui.  413.    1916. 

Miller,  G.  H. — Operating  costs  of  a  well-established  New 
York  apple  orchard:    Dept.  Bui.  130.    1914. 


BIBLIOGEAPHY  119 

Mowry,  H.  H. — Machinery  cost  of  farm  operations  in 
western  New  York :  Dept.  Bui.  338.     1916. 

Mowry,  H.  H. — The  normal  day's  work  of  farm  imple- 
ments, workmen,  and  crews  in  western  New  York: 
Dept.  Bui.  412.    1916. 

Parker,  E.  C,  and  Cooper,  T.  P. — The  cost  of  producing 
Minnesota  farm  products,  1902-1907:  Bureau  of  Sta- 
tistics Bui.  73.  (Pub.  also  as  Minnesota  Agr.  Exp. 
Sta.  Bui.  117.) 

Spillman,  W.  J. — Factors  of  efficiency  in  farming:  In 
U.  S.  Dept.  Agr.  Yearbook,  1913,  p.  93-108. 

Spillman,  W.  J.,  Dixon,  H.  M.,  and  Billings,  G.  A. — 
Farm  management  practice  of  Chester  County,  Pa.: 
Dept.  Bui.  341.    1916. 

Spillman,  W.  J. — Miscellaneous  papers:  The  farmer's 
income:    Bureau  Plant  Indus.  Circ.  132.    1913. 

Spillman,  W.  J. — A  successful  hog  and  seed-corn  farm: 
Farmers'  Bui.  272.     1906. 

Spillman,  W.  J. — A  successful  poultry  and  dairy  farm: 
Farmers'  Bui.  355.     1909. 

Thomson,  E.  H. — Agricultural  survey  of  four  townships 
in  southern  New  Hampshire:  Bureau  Plant  Indus. 
Circ.  75.    1911. 

Thomson,  E.  H. — Farm  bookkeeping:  Farmers'  Bui.  511. 
1912. 

Thomson,  E.  H.,  and  Dixon,  H.  M. — A  farm-management 
survey  of  three  representative  areas  in  Indiana,  Illi- 
nois and  Iowa.    Dept.  Bui.  41.    1914. 

Thomson,  E.  H.,  and  Dixon,  H.  M. — A  method  of  analyz- 
ing the  farm  business:     Farmers'  Bui.  661.     1915. 

Thomson,  E.  H.,  and  Dixon,  H.  M. — Profits  in  farming  on 
irrigated  areas  in  Utah  Lake  Valley:  Dept.  Bui.  117. 
1914. 


120    THE  NEW  BUSINESS  OF  FAEMING 

Turner,  H.  A. — Systems  of  renting  truck  farms  in  south- 
western New  Jersey:    Dept.  Bui.  411.    1916. 

PUBLICATIONS  ISSUED  SINCE  OCTOBER  21,  1916 
DEPARTMENT  BULLETINS 

No.  528. — Seasonable  distribution  of  farm  labor  in  Ches- 
ter County,  Pa.    By  George  A.  Billings.    1917. 
10c. 
560. — Cost  of  keeping  farm  horses  and  cost  of  horse 
labor.    By  M.  R.  Cooper.    1917.    5c. 

FARMERS'  BULLETINS 

No.  782. — The  use  of  a  diary  for  farm  accounts.    By  E.  H. 

Thomson.    1917.    5c. 
816. — Minor  articles  of  farm  equipment.     By  H.  N. 

Humphrey  and  A.  P.  Yerkes.    1917.    5c. 
838. — Harvesting  hay  with  the  sweep-rake.    By  A.  P. 

Yerkes  and  H.  B.  McClure.     1917.    5c. 

OFFICE  OF  THE  SECRETARY  CIRCULARS 

No.     67. — Measuring  hay  in  ricks  or  stacks.     By  H.  B. 
McClure  and  W.  J.  Spillman.    1916. 

YEARBOOK  SEPARATES 

No.  715. — Farm  tenantry  in  the  United  States.    By  "W.  J. 
Spillman  and  E.  A.  Goldenweiser.    1917. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
^  Zj   BERKELEY 

THIS  BOOK  IS IDUeTn  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

to  $1.00  per  volumfafJer^S  dlT^  Tr™»™g 
demand  may  be  renewed  if  apSt?rSf\-B  B°°JS  ?0t  in 
expiration  of  loan  period.       appllcatlon  Js  made  before 


f£Q  101327 

4AY;  7  u?< 


OCT    15  1930 


...» 


15w-4,'24 


jyf 


YB  5 1  #6 


415300 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


Ill 


i 

ii 


in 


11 


HHHF 


■ 


:1 


iiiii>» 


in 


w  \mm 


mm 

I 


!     I     Hi 


:jj!  Hi 

I 

m 


ill  111 


, 


in 


111 


•  1   '       j{|i 


(ft 


!»il 


ill   i!  Mill 


ill 


!>;  h  : ■■; 


